Vanago
by draxal
Summary: Part three of the 'Road Trip' series. Scott survived Dupont, but can't shake the nightmares of what was done to him, and the Vanago, now able to take human form is still on the hunt. For him and the people he loves.
1. Chapter 1

**1**

Her name was Zlata Barinov and she'd been born on the streets of Kiev under the rule of the last Tsar of Russia. She had grown up and plied her trade amidst the bloody series of revolutions that burned across all the Russias. A cutpurse and a whore with a face like the stone angels in the cathedral of St. Volodymyr, who had found herself on the wrong side of the Bolsheviks when the revolutionaries toppled the Emperor's loyalists.

All this she remembered, after more years than she could comprehend, trapped in the shape of a beast, with a beast's mentality and a beast's inability to grasp the concept of time. And time had passed. A great deal of time. The world had changed, and she had changed with it. A hundred years a beast and the urges of the beast still lingered. The instincts still pulled at her, even as her human brain struggled to integrate with her new reality. She had been a predator before a Gypsy hag had cursed her with the last blood speckled breath from her wrinkled lips and turned her into a predator in form as well as mind. That hadn't changed. She was still that predator. The thrill of the kill still made her blood thrum, whether it be slitting the throat of a man who'd paid to lie between her thighs, or hunting down prey and ripping soft, vulnerable flesh with teeth and claws.

It was all the same. Men were still the same as they had always been. Loosing their sense of caution and reason at the sight of a pretty face. Much less the sight of a naked body stumbling out of the woods along the side of the road.

The truck screeched to a halt, the man behind the wheel gaping. He climbed out, approaching her carefully.

"You all right?" He couldn't take his eyes off her, even as he asked the question. He had a soft, pear-shaped body and thinning hair. "You hurt? Can I help you?"

Her grasp of English was precarious. There had been an English diplomat that enjoyed certain _perversions_ that had kept her for half a year in comfort, in rooms on the nicer side of Kiev. She had picked up a rudimentary understanding of the language. But then, he hadn't wanted her for her skills of conversation. She'd left scars on his body and he'd enjoyed the getting of them.

"Yes," she said, staring up at him with large, helpless eyes. He fumbled for his coat, helping her into it.

"What happened? Somebody hurt you? You want I should call the sheriff?"

She shook her head and pointed up the road.

"You need a lift? I can give you a lift. Where you headed? Not far with no clothes, huh? What happened to your clothes?"

"I have - - what you call - - bad luck?" Her voice was rusty from disuse. But he seemed to understand her well enough. He opened the door on the passenger side for her, and she slid in, vinyl seat cold against her bare bottom. He got in, moistening his lips, eyes flicking over her legs.

"Where to?"

"East," she said. There was the faintest trace of a scent to the east.

He started driving, still casting glances her way.

"Name's Carl."

When she didn't answer, he filled her silence. "Not from around here, huh?"

"No," she answered, watching the things he did with hands and feet to control the vehicle. It seemed simple enough.

"Pretty girl like you, out in the woods with no clothes - - you foolin' around and get caught and run off?"

She canted her head, scenting the heat of arousal emanating off him like so much stink.

"Da - -yes," she agreed, smiling, reaching over and sliding her hand up his soft, thick thigh. He smelled of pork fat and sweat, soft and flabby and past his prime, if ever he'd had one. But the flesh between his legs responded, as any man's with a taste for women would, when she grasped it through his trousers.

"Pull over and I show you, huh?"

He couldn't get the truck off the side of the road quickly enough.

He was reaching for her, trying to grope her naked thigh when she snapped his neck. Her lip curled in disgust as she reached across him and opened his door. She shoved the body out, scooting across the seat to follow. She took his clothing. His oversized flannel shirt and his denim trousers that she had to force a new hole in his belt to keep from falling off her. The body she dragged into the brush off the side of the road.

She stood for a moment, eyes closed, breathing in the moist air of dawn, searching for that hint of a scent that would put her on the trail of her prey.

East. Still to the east, the faint whiff of the Man's bitch of a sister. Zlata Barinov smiled, the faintest flash of the amber eyes of the vanago flashing across her gaze. Then she got in the truck, parroting the actions of the man who had owned it, and embraced a new way to follow fleeing prey.

# # #

Scott went to school.

Derek was right. Sitting at home, with nothing to do but think, was a very bad thing. Especially with that twisted collar on his desk, lying there like a bomb with a broken timer. Loathsome and deadly even inert. He'd sat on the end of his bed and stared at it, until he realized his hands were shaking and his claws were out without him even realizing he'd triggered them. That wasn't a good thing. Loss of control for him, for any werewolf, was a dangerous problem to have.

So Scott changed out of the scrubs he'd worn home from the hospital and headed to school. He woke up his mom and let her know, since the last thing she needed was him missing without explanation twice in just over twenty-four hours.

"Honey, are you sure? You don't have to. You really, really don't have to." She was concerned. She'd seen the blood. She'd seen the look in his eyes that he hadn't been able to hide from her. She just didn't know the extent of the things that had caused it. He'd never, ever burden her with the details of that.

"I want to. I _need_ to."

She'd looked at him, long and hard, before nodding and reaching for her phone. "I'll call in and give you an excuse for being late. You lost your phone again, right?"

He stopped in the midst of turning, realizing she was right. It was the second one since Christmas break. He'd barely gotten it broken in and phones weren't cheap.

"Crap," he muttered. Then, "Yeah."

She sighed. "Okay. Take my charge card and pick one up after school."

"Mom, you don't have to - -"

"No, honey, I do. I need to be able to get in touch with you if I have to."

"I'll pay you back next paycheck."

"Yes, you will."

At least his phone was the only thing he'd lost during his stint as Dupont's _guest_. His bike was safe and sound in the garage. He didn't know who'd brought it back, but he had somebody to thank for it.

He got to school three periods in. He stopped by the office and got a slip from the secretary who gave him a wary look and dutifully remarked that she hoped he was feeling better, which led him to wonder what ailment his mom had convinced them he'd been suffering from.

When he walked into Chem. lab, most of the class barely noted his late entrance. He got pretty critical stares from people in the know.

He was short one lab partner in Stiles, and today's experiment was half way finished, so he scooted a stool over to next to Isaac at Allison and Isaac's lab table. They were doing something with PH values today.

Allison leaned to look around Isaac and whispered. "Why are you here?"

"It's a school day." He shrugged, glancing at Isaac's notes. Isaac's handwriting was surprisingly neat and measured.

"Yes, and you've got a perfectly legitimate reason not to be here." She sounded frustrated and he looked up, seeing the furrow between her brows and the faint smudges under her eyes, as if she hadn't slept well last night.

Telling her he was okay seemed to set her off, so he turned a vial in his fingers and admitted softly. "Sitting at home wasn't helping."

She digested that, staring at him hard, until she finally swallowed and retreated back around Isaac.

"How is Stiles?" That came from Lydia, who came up from behind with notes in her hand as if she needed to compare her results with theirs.

"He was okay this morning. His head's killing him. They'll discharge him today, my mom says. But he'll be out of school for a few days, probably. He's not supposed to - - you know - - think much."

Lydia rolled her eyes at the suggestion of that impossibility. "Oh, so they're going to drug him?"

Scott's mouth twitched at that dry and oh so true assessment of the situation. "His dad threatened to."

Lydia looked at him, before she headed back to her table, but didn't ask if he were okay, which he was grateful for. Isaac kept flashing him silent looks from under his lashes, but he didn't say anything.

"You guys find my bike and take it home?" he asked, while the teacher was writing something about acid vs. alkaline on the chalkboard.

"Yeah," Isaac admitted.

"Thanks."

Allison was quiet for a while, pencil eraser idly tapping on her notebook. Finally she leaned forward to look around Isaac again and whisper. "My dad lost the trail of the vanago."

Scott took a breath, the image of that twisted collar on his desk flashing through his mind. The memory of the thing's teeth at his throat. Weird that when these flashes rushed up on him, he could practically _feel_ the imprint of canines against his jugular, or the sting of acid burning through his veins. He clenched his fists, letting the real pain of his claws biting into his palms drive it away.

"Yeah. Derek stopped by this morning and told me."

"They found another of Dupont's men in the woods when they were still on its trail."

"That's - - just great." Derek hadn't mentioned that.

Isaac frowned, looking down at Scott's hands, scenting the drawn blood, maybe. God knew Scott could smell it. It was warm and thick on his palms.

"Miss Argent. Mr. Lahey, I take it from all the chatting, that you've caught Mr. McCall up on what he's missed?" This Chem. teacher was considerably more tolerant than the last one, but she had her limits.

"Yes. All caught up." Scott assured her, flattening his hands on his thighs, letting black denim soak up the red.

She looked dubious, but she let it slide, settling for giving him make-up homework on the way out. Which was the way the day went. Concentrating on schoolwork instead of dwelling on less savory things was a decent enough distraction.

It wasn't until he trudged into the locker room that a teacher seemed to even realize he'd missed a day. Coach was on a tear. Apparently tryouts yesterday hadn't offered up the promising new stock of players that he'd been hoping for. Scott could have reneged on the promise of a kidney and Coach wouldn't have been as offended as him missing mandatory pre-season trials.

He got pounced on pretty much four steps into the lockers, diverting Coach from yelling at some other hapless kid. "Do you think I bother with you bunch of delinquents for my health? Don't you think I'd rather be home, watching Wheel of Fortune instead of trying to weed through the suckiest group of freshman players I've ever had the misfortune to watch try and make a goal?"

"Uhhh - - " he wasn't entirely sure Coach was fishing for an answer, but you never knew.

"Did you think I was kidding when I said there were no shoe in's for front line? Do you not understand the word 'mandatory' McCall?" He stomped right into Scott's personal space, as if he thought his voice might not carry two or three feet of respectable distance. It wasn't like he hadn't done it before, Coach lacking certain volume filters when it came to getting his passionate points across. Generally, Scott went with the flow, but today - - today was not a good day. Today Coach's angry presence right up in his face, the scent of Coach's ire, the stab of Coach's finger towards his chest and his mind went blank.

A body inserted itself between him and Coach, making Coach back up a step.

"Oh, sorry. Didn't see you there, Coach." Isaac shrugged carelessly, hands in his pockets, shoulder still between Scott and Coach, drawing Coach's attention away from Scott's hands and the extended claws.

"And don't think I didn't notice you weren't there either, Lahey," Coach complained, oblivious to the fact that Isaac had maybe just saved him grievous bodily injury.

Scott took a desperate breath, retracting the claws. Profoundly horrified at what he'd almost done. He wanted to back out of the locker room with its shifting mass of humanity and find someplace devoid of life to find his balance.

"Don't think," Coach was going on. "That just because the two of you are the best chance of actually getting past first round this year, you won't be sitting the bench if you don't take team responsibility seriously."

"That's cool," Isaac said. "We were thinking of joining chess club, anyway. They're recruiting."

Coach gaped, bug eyed and incredulous. "Chess club?" he sputtered, looking between the two of them. "Do you even know how to play chess, McCall?"

Actually Scott didn't, but he was having trouble formulating an answer, too many things swirling around in his head. Isaac threw an arm across his shoulders and started steering him past Coach, answering smoothly in his stead. "Sure, he does. And they have these jackets with little monograms - -"

Coach held up a hand, sensing a fake out when he smelled one, but not willing to take the chance.

"Yeah, well - - they're also a bunch of geeks that never get laid. Just - - just try not to miss practice. I don't want this bunch of new losers picking up bad habits."

He did okay throughout practice, but his concentration was off, more focused on what he wasn't doing, than what he was. But then Coach was more interested in hammering the new recruits into shape than he was working old players this early into pre-season. Still, it was repetitive, familiar exertion and it got his blood pumping in a good way.

"Thanks for that - - in the locker room," Scott caught up to Isaac after practice.

Isaac shrugged. "It happens."

"It shouldn't. I don't know what happened. I could have - -" He tailed off, blowing out a breath.

"You could have. But you didn't," Isaac finished for him.

After showering and changing back into clothes that still had that faint blood smell from earlier - - he'd like to go a day without smelling blood on his jeans - - Scott headed towards student parking.

"I'm not headed right home, but if you need a lift - -?" He asked of Isaac. The buses had left and Allison, who'd been giving Isaac's lifts lately, was already gone.

"Where are you headed?"

"To buy another phone. I wish you'd found that, when you found the bike."

"Who says its not still out there?"

Scott stopped and stared at him, not having considered that possibility. Not having put a lot of thought into piecing together what had happened to him at all. Actively avoiding it, truth be told. But if he could save himself having to buy a new phone, if the old was lying out in a field somewhere in perfectly good working order - - it was worth the effort to at least take a look.

"That's actually a really good idea, but - - I'm not entirely sure where I stopped - -" That morning was a blur. It had been along that one forested length of Rt. 17, but it was a long stretch.

"I know where," Isaac said and jerked his head towards the bike. "C'mon."

There was just field and forest where Isaac told him to pull over. A half-mile of it that all looked the same and he hadn't been paying attention yesterday, more intent on making up time lost to oversleeping and not getting to school late. Yesterday. Now that was a bizarre, mind-bending concept. It seemed like days and days had passed since he'd stopped for a girl with a flat. It had seemed like days instead of - - what fourteen hours - - that Dupont had had him.

There was nothing on the side of the road to indicate anything unusual had happened so recently. No tire tracks, no scent, no anything but gravel and mud. Isaac was already tromping off through the tall grass, looking this way and that. Scott followed him, boots sinking into mud. Even if it was out here, it might be ruined beyond saving.

"Try calling my number," he suggested.

Isaac dug out his own phone and did just that.

There was a weak little chirp that no normal human ears could have heard. It came from the woods beyond the field.

"They dumped your bike in the woods. Probably tossed your phone when they did it."

Dumped his bike and tossed his phone. A haunting sort of statement that made him swallow and reach up to idly rub at a twinge in his neck. But it made sense. They'd have known he had connections with people that could have traced a cell. Dupont hadn't been stupid. Well, other than his tendency to collect things that had the capacity to turn around and rip his guts out.

"How'd they get you?" Isaac asked, moving into the woods, where pine tags and leaves made for less mud.

"There was a girl with car trouble."

Isaac gave him a look over his shoulder and Scott sighed.

"I know. Cliché. I was stupid."

"You were you. You'd probably do it again."

Scott wasn't sure if that was a cut or a compliment. With Isaac it was sometimes hard to tell. Isaac tried Scott's number again, but there was no response this time and dead electronics didn't give off scents, so they both kicked aside pine tags and leaves. Scott wasn't holding out a lot of hope, his sense of optimism sort of muted and numb today.

Then Isaac saw something in the leaves and bent to pluck up a dirt-spattered phone. He straightened up with a smirk of satisfaction and tossed it at Scott. He caught it, looking mournfully at the dead screen. He pressed the on button, but it didn't show signs of resurrection.

"It's probably ruined."

"Maybe if you dry it out and recharge it, it'll be okay."

Scott wiped a thumb across a mud smeared, dark face, not so sure that was possible, but it was worth a try if it saved him close to a week's salary. He shoved it in his pocket, ready to quit this place.

"Soo - - you want me to drop you off at Allison's?" He felt the need to make the overture. Isaac had been there for him today. Isaac had been there for him last night. So had Allison. They all had.

Isaac shrugged. "Naw. I'll head home with you."

He didn't know what to say to that, so he just nodded and headed back towards the bike.

# # #

Stiles' dad had left strict directions in the form of a discharge instruction sheet and a firm verbal reiteration of the contents. If it hadn't been for seven homicides that the Beacon Hill's sheriff's department was still trying to sort out, Stiles would have had the pleasure of his dad hovering like a concerned nanny and then Stiles' head might have actually exploded.

He loved his dad, he really did, but there was only so much overprotective parental concern he could deal with and not start climbing the walls. So - - thank God for brutal murder sprees. It sucked for his dad though, knowing a lot more than he could tell, trying to juggle conducting a proper investigation against the knowledge that the thing that had done the killings was a supernatural monster. Aside from the fact that he'd probably get booted from the department on grounds of mental instability if he started theorizing about monsters on the loose, he had the whole new prickly dilemma of trying to keep his son and his son's friends out of it.

So Stiles got deposited at home and left in peace to suffer from a still aching head, a back that felt like at the very least he had a few cracked ribs, even though they'd assured him there was only bruising, and a severe case of boredom. No video games, no computer, no excess metal or physical stimulation, which didn't leave him a lot to do on a weekday afternoon. TV was not on the bad list, so he channel surfed relentlessly for a while, but talk shows and Law and Order reruns seemed about the extent of what cable had to offer and nothing appealed. He called Scott, but his phone went to the same voice mail message Stiles had heard way too many times yesterday morning when he was desperately trying to track him down. He was definitely going to badger Scott into changing that message, because if he had to hear it one more time he was going to start breaking things. He stared at the PS3 longingly, thinking that a turn based RPG might actually numb his brain. A little old school Final Fantasy wouldn't take much in the way of concentration or honed reflexes. It couldn't hurt, right? It actually seemed like the effort not to find something interesting - - and electronic - - to do, was causing him more stress than staying away from it.

The only reason he didn't cave and turn it on, was because of the niggling little worry that there was an off chance, that maybe the occasional medical professional actually knew what they were talking about and the notion of brain swelling or bleeding out of his ears made him distinctly nervous. It wasn't like he had the ability to miraculously heal from bodily damage and his brain was sort of the number one thing he had going for him when he was all too likely to run into things - - friend or foe - - that could rip doors off cars as easily as he could lift a can of soda. He was trying really hard not to think about what might have happened last night, but trying to actively '_not' _think a thing, once that thing had inserted itself into his thoughts was close to impossible. He kept replaying those last memories he had of the craziness in the barn before it had all gone blank. That moment when the vanago's attention had shifted from the bloody mess it had made of Julian Dupont, to him. The slow lift of its head, entrails dripping from its jaws - - that charge that he hadn't even been able to follow before the world went blank. Allison's arrows hadn't been making a dent and Scott had been down, taken there by the collar Dupont had fitted him with - - and he'd thought he was on the fast track to a brutal, evisceraty death. It had been a really pleasant surprise to wake up.

It would be an even better one to know some pertinent details about what had actually happened, which Scott hadn't been feeling sharey about this morning. Lack of details drove Stiles crazy. And frustrated and crazy was not making his head feel any better.

Tylenol. He needed a few more Tylenol. So he went to the kitchen and popped a few with a gulp of orange juice. He got a bowl of sugarcoated cereal while he was at it, and was heading into the living room to consume it when the doorbell rang.

He was really hoping it was Scott, come to check up on him, because this morning's conversation hadn't been nearly comprehensive enough. But when he opened the door, his visitor turned out to be a lot prettier than Scott and a lot more surprising to find on his doorstep.

"Lydia."

She stood there in a little green dress, her hair up in a twist at the top of her head, sort of frowning at him.

"Is your father not home? Should you be alone, right after being released from the hospital for a head injury?" Was her opening shot.

"Well, hello to you to, Lydia."

Her frown turned into a little twitch of the mouth and a shrug. "I just wanted to see how you were doing," she admitted.

He gingerly touched the back of his head. The lump had gone down, but there were a few stitches closing up the gash he'd gotten when head had met tractor. "I'm okay - - you know, except for getting tossed around by a monster the size of a Volkswagen, and this bruise that literally covers like half my back - - and oh, you know, being shot and all. That still hurts. The concussion's just sort of a minor irritation."

There were wounds you didn't admit to a girl you were trying to impress - -like say, for instance, getting your ass kicked by an old man, and then there were wounds - -war wounds - - gotten from willingly wading into battle against a thing that could take out a perfectly good werewolf without breaking a sweat. Those were the sorts of things you grudgingly admitted in a totally manly way hoping for a little feminine sympathy.

She lifted a brow, not as impressed by his list of woes as she should have been, or either hiding it really well. Then she frowned and relented, with a nervous twist of her hand on the strap of her purse. "I feel a little responsible. I was the one who led you out there, after all."

He stared for a second, trying to piece together that little declaration of guilt over something that they all owed her Scott's life for.

"Yeah, you were _responsible_ for finding Scott. He'd be probably be dead now, if not for you. I'll take a little head bump as a trade off for that any day of the week."

Her lips curved in a little smile. "I was surprised to see him at school today."

"What? He was at School? He didn't tell me he was going to school."

Lydia's brow twitched. "He seemed okay."

Stiles didn't buy it. He didn't think Scott was okay. Whatever had happened in those hours that Dupont had had him, had hit him really hard. Stiles had seen it in his eyes this morning. Had seen it in his face last night. And if Scott should have been anywhere, it should have been over here, helping him stave off boredom when the two of them had perfectly legitimate reasons to be missing school.

"Yeah, maybe. Did somebody tell you what happened?" He eased down on the coach with a grimace, his back, as sprained muscles and bone deep bruising tended to do, really starting to hurt the day after the actual injury had occurred.

"Allison told me. The two of you were just morons, rushing into what you rushed into."

"If I'd have had time to really think about it - - I'd have wussed out. But it all happened so fast."

She pursed her lips, then shook her head. "No. I don't think you give yourself enough credit. You rushed headlong into something terrible for a friend. You wouldn't have abandoned him."

He opened his mouth, feeling inexplicably embarrassed. "Yeah, but I was terrified."

"Then you're a rational, intelligent human being. Only a fool wouldn't have been."

She was making his heart pound with all the compliments. He actually felt a little lightheaded and he really, really hoped the increased blood flow hadn't triggered some concussion related relapse.

"You're saying I'm rational and intelligent?"

She rolled her eyes. "You have your moments. In between the weirdness and the obsessive compulsive behavior."

"That might be the nicest thing you've ever said to me."

"Humph. Don't get used to it." But the half smile she slid his way took the edge off. Aches and pains aside, today hadn't turned out so bad after all.


	2. Chapter 2

2

The scent was laced with blood and easy to follow. It ended at a row of weathered, rooms for rent off the side of the highway. There were two other cars in the gravel lot, and a sense of isolation about the place, backed by mist-shrouded trees as it was.

She left her newly acquired truck at the edge of the road and prowled the covered walk along the row of doors, until she came to the one that stank of blood and the scent of the Man's brethren. She stood outside it, considering, listening to the sounds of life inside, to the more distant sound of voices from another room down the row. A car passed behind her on the road. She rapped on the door and heard hushed whispers from inside. The panicked movement of a body moving. Then nothing, as they chose to ignore her, going silent behind the fragile shelter of a wooden door.

She canted her head, a faint smile touching her mouth. She didn't knock again. She reached for the knob and twisted and with a protesting whine it snapped off in her hand. The door swung inwards and two started faces stared at her.

The Man's sister lay on one of two beds, half undressed, blood spotted bandages covering hidden wounds, an array of bloodier rags lay on the table next to her, as well as the shafts of several bolts. A younger woman was poised with her hand in a black duffle, at the long dresser facing the beds. She spun, bringing out a gun, and Zlata moved before she could aim it, darting across the room and slamming a palm against her chest, flinging her backwards into the wall at the back of the small room.

The Man's bitch of a sister was reaching desperately for another small gun on the table between the beds. Zlata caught her wrist before she could bring it up to bear, tightening her fist until she felt bones creak and fracture. The woman screamed, the gun tumbling from strengthless fingers.

She stared down at a pale, pain filled face. At blue eyes that could have been the Man's own. She recalled those eyes, through the bars of a cage, staring dispassionately, while the Man entertained himself with the infliction of pain upon her.

"Who - -? What do you want?" The Man's sister had the gall to ask her. But then, the woman had only ever seen her in the form of a beast.

"You don't recognize?" she purred, leaning down, letting the woman look into her eyes. And perhaps something of the beast flickered, because her face drained of blood, eyes widening in horror.

"No - -" she whispered.

Zlata smiled, a slow spread of lips. Then she snatched one of the bloody bolts off the table and drove it down though the top of the woman's skull. It sank through bone like it was butter, until all that was left was the fletching at the end, around which blood began to slowly seep. She released her hold on the wrist and the woman toppled, eyes wide and fixed, mouth still round in horror.

The sound of a body trying to move drew her attention. The girl was moaning faintly, from where she lay. Zlata shut the door, providing a modicum of privacy, even with a shattered lock. She retrieved the guns, having little taste for them, hating the smell of gunpowder and the report of deafening gunshots. She took them in her hands, exerting pressure, twisting the barrel of first one, then the other, before dumping them both in the bin beside the dresser. The mirror atop it startled her with its reflection and she paused, staring back at the wild haired creature in her oversized, man's clothing. She lifted a hand to her hair, running fingers through the tangles. But her skin was smooth and firm, albeit dirty, as if she were only eighteen. As if the curse that had stolen her body and her mind for those long years had in return preserved the state of the youth she'd had when it had taken her. She turned her hand, long fingers and fragile seeming wrist and remembered the claws of the beast and how easily they sank into the tender flesh of prey. Her fingers tingled, and nails grew, knuckles thickening, as claws extended, six inches of black, curved bone. She felt the bones in her arms lengthening, her ribs shifting, her knees twisting, as if her entire body longed to shift back into what it had become accustomed to for so long. She hissed and fought it off, until only the claws remained. The claws were all she needed when all she faced was weak human flesh.

She turned her attention to the girl, who was blinking, still half in a stupor on the floor. She padded over and crouched before her, staring until the girl recovered enough of her wits to realize death was staring her down. She pressed back against the wall then, sobbing, tears that the Man's sister had been too much of a predator herself to shed, running down soft cheeks. A frightened young girl who would tell her things about this new world that she needed to know to survive. Who would tell her what she needed to know to stalk her primary prey.

"Please - -please - -" The girl sobbed. "Please - - let me go."

Zlata canted her head, amused. The stink of fear was intoxicating. She lifted a hand, lightly running the tip of one claw down the side of the girl's jaw. The girl shuddered, the faint stench of urine mixing with the blood smell in the room.

"Perhaps, if you speak true." She could play the game and there were times when hope inspired more truths than stark fear. "Tell me what you know of the wolf."

# # #

The first call he got, once his phone had dried out and recharged, proving the thing more durable than he'd thought, was Stiles, bitching at him for keeping him out of the loop on the details of Scott's school attendance record. He was told in no uncertain terms to haul his ass over Stiles house after school the next day or face the dire consequences of Stiles going stir crazy.

So he stopped by Stiles' house before heading to work and shifted uncomfortably when Stiles' gave him the evil eye and whined. "Why didn't you call me yesterday? Why didn't you tell me you were going to school?"

"I didn't know we were dating and I was supposed to check in hourly." Scott countered, earned a narrow eyed look.

"Ha. You're hilarious." Stiles didn't look amused.

Truth be told, Stiles looked a little grouchy, a little bedraggled, in sweatpants and a t-shirt with his hair sort of sticking this way and that. But then Stiles never had taken being stuck inside for sick days well. Stir crazy was too a mild term for the restless energy that Stiles built up during days on end of house confinement. And honestly, Scott was feeling a little guilty, over that. He was feeling all sorts of guilty over Stiles being hurt because of him. The terror he'd felt that night - -one thing piling atop another and another - -cumulating in Stiles taking that hit from the vanago - - was almost surreal in its intensity. So bad, that for a while there, in that hospital room, listening to the sound of Stiles' even breaths as he slept, he'd been numb. Every time a nurse had come in to check on Stiles, to rouse him every few hours that first night, because that's what you did with people with head injury, Scott had started, slouched there in the window seat, hardly able to breath from fear, until Stiles' had made some muttered, sleep hazed response before drifting back out.

"I couldn't call. My phone was out in a field somewhere." Scott shrugged, dropping his backpack and following Stiles through the house to his bedroom. The computer was on, as was the TV. The room wasn't nearly as messy as Scott's tended to perpetually be, but it was a lot more unkempt than Stiles' usual habit. A day and a half and he was literally climbing the walls.

"I thought you weren't supposed to be on the computer?"

"That was yesterday. I stayed off it all afternoon." Stiles' flopped down in his computer chair, so Scott sat on the end of the bed, picking at a few loose strings around a hole starting on the knee of his jeans. It unraveled, growing larger as he worried at it. "What do you mean out in a field?"

Scott shrugged. "Out where you guys found my bike."

Stiles stared at him for a moment, digesting that. "You went back there?"

"Me and Isaac."

"Well, I guess that makes sense. Sooo - when you actually get around to your monthly check of voice mails - - ignore about the last - - oh - - fifty from me, okay? I was in sort of a mood yesterday. For like the last few days."

Scott looked up, feeling that twang of guilt again. He could deal with a few irate voice mails from Stiles. "Sorry."

"For what?" Stiles waved a hand. "You can't answer a phone if some jackass tossed it in a field."

"No - - I mean - -" Scott made a motion to his own head. "You know, for almost getting you killed."

Stiles canted his head, giving Scott a furrow browed, critical stare. "Dude, you are not guilt tripping on that, are you? I almost got killed because of that dickbag Dupont and his freakin' psychotic monster. You were an innocent bystander, just hanging out when I got there."

Stiles' humor was not as sophisticated at he liked to think it was. Scott let him slide with it this time, rolling his eyes and flopping backwards on the bed to stare up at the ceiling.

"Seriously, Scott, its not your fault. Not even a little."

He didn't entirely believe that. He could have been smarter, faster, could have withstood the pain a little better and gotten between the vanago and Stiles a little sooner.

"Maybe."

"No maybe. God, what is it about people coming and apologizing to me for shit they didn't do?"

"You had somebody else come apologize?"

"Lydia came over yesterday."

Scott lifted his head to peer at Stiles. "Really?"

Stiles grinned. "Yeah. She was worried about me. Unlike some people."

"I was worried."

"Yeah? You didn't show up on my doorstep yesterday."

Scott sighed, dropping his head back down.

"So how are you?" Stiles ventured after a few moments of silence.

"Fine."

"Yeah, that sounds like the automated answer."

Scott didn't have an easy response to that. He swallowed and admitted. "I almost killed Coach yesterday."

"Really? I can't say I don't constantly expect to read some story about a student snapping and beating him over the head with a lacrosse stick - -"

Scott sighed and held up a blunt nailed hand. "Yeah, I didn't have my stick on me at the time."

"What happened?"

"I dunno. He was bitching at me for missing tryouts - - up in my face - - and I just went sort of blank. Isaac got between me and him - - but God, Stiles, I had claws out in the locker room and I don't even remember losing it enough to pop them."

"Which is why," Stiles said. "You shouldn't have gone to school yesterday."

"So everybody keeps telling me."

"Well, everybody's smarter than you."

"Except for Derek. Who's all, 'get out of the house, it'll be good for you' and he had sort of a point."

"Yeah, and when has Derek ever implemented a stellar plan? When'd you talk to him?"

"He was at my house yesterday when I got back from the hospital. He told me they'd lost the trail. So that thing's still out there."

"Yeah, my dad heard from Argent. He's got a shitty job ahead of him, trying to discourage people from going out in the woods and getting their faces eaten off and their guts ripped out. You'll never guess what the coroner is ruling as cause of death."

"Animal attack?" Scott ventured an educated guess.

"Bingo. So at least they can scare campers from going out there with the excuse that there's a rabid bear on the loose. But there's always some idiot who wants to go tromping through the woods at night just for the thrill of it."

"You mean, like going out looking for dead bodies? Idiots like that?"

Stiles lifted a brow. Then he sighed and slumped back in the chair. "So how pissed off was Coach?"

"Pretty pissed. Tryouts didn't go as well as he was hoping."

"Did he ask about me?"

"Umm. No. But he was distracted."

"Right. Doesn't matter anyway. No contact sports for at least two weeks. So I might as well figure, I'll be relegated to second line again."

"Two weeks isn't so long. The season won't even have started by then. When are you coming back to school?"

"Tomorrow."

"Really?"

"The only reason I stayed out today was because my dad couldn't get past the worst case scenarios on the discharge sheet."

"Is that where you get it from?"

"Shut up. I'm sore as hell, but I can be sore at school just as easy as here, so why not? And somebody needs to be there to keep an eye on you."

"I don't need any eyes on me."

"Sure you don't. Did I show you my bruise? It's seriously awesome."

# # #

It was his first day back at work since the 'incident', and Deaton mercifully didn't give him any sympathetic looks or ask meaningless questions. Just once, as they were closing up shop and heading for the parking lot, Deaton stopped and said. "If you need to talk - - about anything - - I'm a good listener."

To which, Scott nodded, not knowing how to respond, thinking that if people would just stop asking him if he were teetering on the edge of something, he could put it behind him and forget about it. He was neither fragile nor emotionally compromised - - if you didn't count the incident in the locker room - - but then Coach could bring out the worst in a Buddhist monk when he was on a tear, so Scott wasn't sure that counted.

Then he got home and saw Allison's car in the drive and thought maybe he was jumping the gun on that last self-assurance. But no. It was not an issue. He'd promised Isaac it wasn't an issue and more importantly he'd promised himself. This was Isaac's home now too and there was no reason for him not to invite Allison over. And good for Allison, being able to actually have a relationship she didn't have to hide. Where she didn't have to sneak around like a thief in the night and her boyfriend didn't have to fear for his life on the off chance of being discovered by her gun-toting father.

So it wasn't an issue. Definitely not an issue. He took a deep breath and headed inside. The kitchen smelled of Chinese takeout. There were a couple of plates in the sink, a half empty soda bottle on the counter. He could hear the TV from the den. It would be cowardly to retreat up to his room and maybe put on a pair of earphones and turn the volume up to high, without first poking his head in to say hi.

"Hey, guys." He'd made enough noise coming in that Isaac would have heard and hopefully kept him from walking in on anything he really didn't want to see.

They were on the sofa, watching TV. There were a few books on the coffee table, but they were closed up, like they'd given up on whatever they'd been officially doing a while back. They were sitting shoulder to shoulder, Isaac with socked feet on the edge of the table, Allison with hers folded up on the couch. Isaac had an arm across the back of the couch behind her.

"Hey," Isaac nodded.

Allison smiled. "There's Chinese in the refrigerator. Heat some up and come join us. Isaac's making me watch Doctor Who."

"She's never seen it," Isaac said, as if her ignorance of the subject baffled him.

"Ahh - - Stiles tries to make me watch it all the time, too. But I've got homework - - so I'm gonna go upstairs."

He retreated before she could push. Back to the kitchen, because he was hungry, but he just grabbed an anonymous white takeout carton from the fridge and a fork, perfectly fine with consuming it cold.

She caught him before he could get to the stairs, leaning on the jamb of the doorway to the den and staring at him with empathetic brown eyes.

"Its okay that I'm here, right?"

He smiled at her, feeling trapped. Feeling torn. Wanting her happy, wanting her whole again because she hadn't been for a while there, just not wanting to have to sit on the other end a sofa from her being happy and whole with another guy. He was allowed that little bit of selfishness, he thought.

"Of course it is. I'm just - - you know, homework." He held up the backpack. She didn't take the bait and look at it, so he had to break eye contact himself and escape up the stairs. It wasn't even a false ruse. He did have homework. So he jammed ear buds into his ears, hit shuffle on his ipod and settled down to immerse himself in it.

He'd gotten through his English Lit reading, and had pulled out his Algebra 2 worksheet when a niggling little _something_ made the hairs on the back of his arms stand up. He pulled out the ear buds, pausing the ipod and sat there listening. There were dogs barking outside. And not just the neighbor's pair of Spaniels. It sounded like every dog in a four-block radius was adding its voice to the chorus. He took a breath, rising, his own hackles up. The edginess he was feeling was way out of bounds for what might have been just a domino effect of dogs feeding each other's frenzy. It could have started a while back and he'd never heard it with the music drowning out the outside world.

He went to the window and stared out into the darkness. Darker than usual. The streetlamp on the corner was out and only a few porch lights illuminated the night at all. Something crashed outside, a great creaking crash and the house went dark. Everything went dark, the lights across the street, the sound of the TV from downstairs. Total blackout. And it wasn't just dark. Dogs weren't just losing their collective minds. Something was out there. Every instinct he had screamed something was out there.

He pelted down the stairs, knowing the way by instinct alone, heading for the kitchen. Vision adjusting to the pitch slowly. There wasn't even moonlight in the house to see by. Isaac and Allison were already up, fumbling their way towards the kitchen. Isaac turned when Scott came in, eyes glowing faintly. Allison was a dark shape next to him, that he was able to scent better than see.

"What happened?" she asked. "Did a car hit a power pole?"

"I don't know. I think something's out there. Its got the dogs riled."

"Like something what?" Isaac asked nervously.

"I don't know." He felt for the drawer under the microwave for a flashlight and put it in Allison's hand. Out of the three of them, she was the one that needed it most. She switched it on, shielding the light with her hand.

"Lets go see what it is," she suggested. She looked less pale and scared than Isaac did, maybe less freaked out than he was, which stuck Scott as singularly funny in a hysterical, wrapped in a straitjacket, sort of way.

He reached for the door, since Isaac seemed rather reluctant to do it, and damned if he was letting Allison venture out first, no matter how confident she was. Outside, even with cloud cover dulling the light of the stars and the half moon, it was easier to see. He stood for a second in the driveway, just listening and scenting the air. The dogs were still wailing like the dead were rising, but there were no other sounds. No scents that seemed out of place. They followed him out, Allison shining the flashlight beam into the bushes that separated his drive from the yard next door. The two Spaniels were running the length of the fence behind the bushes, yapping their heads off.

They walked down the drive, towards the street, looking for whatever had made that crash. The pole was down at the end of the block, the dark snarl of wires draped across the street and the cars parked along the side of the road.

"Crap. What did that?" Isaac joined him on the street.

Scott shook his head, having no clue. Allison passed them, walking that way, the flashlight a wavering spot of light on the street before her.

"We should maybe not go down there," Isaac said warily, having a healthy fear of electricity. "Live wires and all."

She cast a glance back at them. "Yeah, I'm thinking not so live at the moment. The breaker's tripped."

The dogs were still barking, but the number of canine voices were dwindling. Scott looked into the darkness of yards, the shadows of parked cars, that feeling of tension running the gambit of his nervous system still there. He flexed his hands, curbing the urge to extend his claws.

The downed pole had made a mess of somebody's shiny new pickup. But if it had been a car that had run into it, it wasn't there anymore. Just a pole the thickness of a large man's torso snapped about four foot from the ground. Allison let the flashlight beam travel the length of it, before turning it back on them.

"Whoever hit this and drove away must have been in a tank," Isaac commented.

"Yeah," Scott said softly, still scanning the darkness. It was his neighborhood, he knew this street like the back of his hand, but still, there was something unfamiliar - - unsettling about it in the midst of a blackout.

"You still think something's out here?" Allison asked.

"I don't sense anything," Isaac said.

"I don't know," Scott shook his head, honestly not sure anymore. "Maybe it's just me."

"You're allowed," Allison shifted closer, brushing against him.

There were other people venturing out of houses, identifiable by the glow of flashlights in the dark. Someone must have called 911, because the distant sound of approaching sirens could be heard. Somehow, the influx of simple humanity drove away the tension eating away at his spine. He took a breath, allowing himself to relax.

"So, I guess this nixes the Doctor Who marathon, huh?" Allison's smile was this eerie thing in the glow of her flashlight.

"As good a reason as any," Scott said, staring at the splintered wood.

He got a grin from her at that bit of shared lack of enthusiasm. Isaac didn't seem to mind. Stiles would have been mortally offended.

"Looks like we're going to be in the dark for the rest of the night," Isaac came up on his other side, hands stuffed in his pockets.

"We could go back to my place," Allison suggested. "Make popcorn, have a sleepover. My dad would love it."

Scott wasn't entirely sure if she were kidding. "Right," he said cautiously. "Because he loves it when you bring wolves home for the night."

Isaac shrugged, maybe missing the humor altogether. "I'm game either way."

"You go. My mom's shift is over at two. I don't want her coming home to a dark house."

"So you'd rather sit in the dark for four hours waiting for her? Don't be silly, come over, hang out, then you guys can get back here before she gets home." Her fingers slipped around his arm, urging him back towards the house. He let her lead him, the touch of her fingers on his skin distracting.

It was so not a good idea. But then, sitting in the dark when he was imagining things lurking in it, wasn't such a fantastic plan of action either. He still wasn't entirely convinced there hadn't been something out here, setting the dogs off. But it was gone now. And yeah, maybe sitting in a blacked out house in a blacked out neighborhood really wasn't what he needed to be doing now.

"Yeah. Okay."


	3. Chapter 3

3

Before the girl died, Zlata learned many things. About her wolf. About the world she found herself in.

She washed the dirt and the blood off her skin afterwards, standing in the dingy ceramic tub, wonderful hot water raining down upon her. Then she rifled through the bags and found the girl's clothes of a size for her. She took what she wanted, took the contents of the woman's bag, the currency contained within, as well as the card that the girl claimed would give her access to untold riches by its simple presentation.

The girl had been helpful. Desperately helpful, so she'd given her a quick death. She left the bodies where they lay when she went, abandoning the truck that stank of sweat, and pork and hops and taking the gleaming black car parked outside the room instead.

A hunger came upon her, a purely human hunger that made her belly ache and her mouth water when she came upon a building some miles down the road, where the smells of roasting meat permeated the air around it. She could not recall what her last meal had been, before the more primal hungers of the beast had taken her over. More than likely stale bread and the boiled mash of road rations. Times had been lean on the run from the retribution of the Bolsheviks.

She pulled the car into the lot, one among a dozen other vehicles. Simply sitting in it, outside the building, she could sense the array of human life within. The beast in her stirred, eager to rend so much tender prey. She closed her eyes, luxuriating in the rush, before she pushed it back. She wasn't here to hunt. She had to contain the instinct. If she left a field of corpses behind her, they would rise en masse against her and hunt her down, just as they had hunted and killed each and every one of her brethren. But then, none of them, even as men, had been as wily as she.

She went inside, and a few eyes turned her way. Then a few more, the appreciative eyes of men, the gauging eyes of the women. She sat at the long counter, staring up at the indecipherable scrawl overhead. There were pictures of food interspaced, and when the harried looking server came up to her, she pointed at one that looked appetizing.

A man settled into the seat next to her, motioning for the woman behind the counter to fill the empty cup he held in his hand. Not an unappealing man, with a square jaw and a hard body under his workman's clothing. He cast a smile at her, reeking of confidence. She cast a look at him, under her lashes, sizing him up. Properly cooked food was not the only thing she could hardly remember the last time she'd had.

He spoke with her, casual bragging of this thing or that he had accomplished in his life. Most of it was lies. Men always lied in their efforts to impress women. But she smiled at him, and laughed at his humor, and let him graze his knuckles across the back of her arm, which set his pulse to racing. She could hear it rushing through his veins, clear as day. He insisted on paying for her meal and she let him, walking outside with him, his hand on her back, his breath against her ear as he leaned down and promised of a place not far away. She followed him in her car, to a little house off the road, one of a line of little houses, and he was on her before they'd fully entered the room, hands roaming her body, mouth hot upon hers.

She answered him back, surprising him with her vigor, tearing at clothing, parts of her throbbing in anticipation of a man's hands and the penetration of a man's rigid flesh. The sex was hard and fast and rough. His skin was scored by her nails and her teeth, but he lay panting afterwards, not complaining of it. Her culmination had been lackluster at best, but then, she'd always found her most satisfying release when pain was involved, and blood.

"Good God, girl, you're a little hellcat, aren't you?"

She rolled over and squeezed his softening member, making him gasp, before she stroked the soft flesh of the tip with her thumb. "You like, huh?"

"I like," he panted.

"You do something for me, yes?"

"Sure, baby. Whatever you want."

"You know this place - - this Beacon Hills, well?"

"Lived here all my life," he said.

"There is a place I need to find. An address. You show me where."

"Sure."

She let him go, rolling off the bed and padding naked to the bag she'd dropped inside the door. She came back with the slip of paper the girl had written an address on.

He looked at it, considering, then said. "That's not in town. Down in the valley, I think. What you got friends down there? Family?"

She shrugged. "Show me where."

"You wanna finish up what you started, first?"

She ran a nail down his chest and smiled. "After. I finish after."

He drove, talking as they went, while she marked the way. Remembering.

"That's the high school. I went there," he said, as they passed. The woods dwindled away and the houses began. They came to a street lined with modest homes and he slowed, peering through the windshield for house numbers. Finally pulling to the side of the street across from one and pointing.

"That's it. That's the address you're looking for."

She could have told him that without seeing the number. She closed her eyes and breathed in the scent of the wolf. His place. His home and the air was rife with traces of him. She hadn't even needed to track him the old fashioned way. A simple slip of paper and a man eager to please and she'd found him. It had been too easy. He wasn't cunning, her wolf, or canny, not like the wolves of the old country that had hidden in shadows, as wily as their four-legged counterparts. No, he lived in a house in a street filled with prey and pretended he was something he was not.

She laughed, anticipation building at the core of her.

"You wanna go in?" The man asked her.

"No."

"Back to my place then?"

"Back to your place, yes." She smiled. The hunger had built again, roused by the scent of the wolf. By the success of this unorthodox hunt. Bloodlust mixed with simple lust.

When they returned to his little house, she used his body again, and this time, when she raked his flesh, it was not with blunt human nails. This time he screamed and he kept screaming until he stopped, and when her fulfillment came upon her it was rich and full, spurred by the taste of blood in her mouth and the feel of hot, wet flesh under her hands.

She stared at the body afterwards, at the gaping wounds and the glistening glimpses of organs beneath. Fragile. Human prey was so fragile. She could hardly play with them at all, before they became inert, lifeless sacks of flesh. She licked the blood off her lips and thought of the wolf. He would heal when she raked him with her claws and tore into his flesh with her teeth. No need for restraint with a predator that could heal as quickly as she could tear him apart. She had only ever hunted wolves for the thrill of the kill before, because that was the only use the beast had had for them. But now that she wore the cloak of humanity again, there were other games she was eager to play.

And tonight she would begin.

# # #

It was raining Friday morning, this heavy, cold, miserable downpour, so on his first day free to roam the world again, Stiles drove over to give Scott a ride to school in a vehicle with an actual roof. There were a couple of power company trucks at the end of Scott's block, setting a new power pole. He only got a bare glimpse of the old one on the ground behind the trucks, but Scott had filled him in on what had happened.

"So you went over to Allison's with Allison and Isaac, last night." Stiles commented as soon as Scott was in the jeep. "Was it like sort of a ménage a trios date thing?"

"No. And shut up." Scott ran a hand through his hair, shedding droplets of water.

Stiles smirked, putting the jeep in reverse and backing down the drive. "I'm just saying."

"Well, stop saying. She was just being nice. How's your head?" That was a defensive enough rejoinder that Stiles had to figure that no matter what Scott claimed, it had to have been a little weird for him. And if it wasn't then Stiles felt obligated to feel a little weird about it on his behalf.

"Okay." He decided pushing Scott on the subject, when he did have a lingering touch of pressure behind his eyes, would benefit neither one of them. "I've got a doctor's note and a bottle of Tylenol, so I'm set."

Scott stared at him, a little worried furrow between his brows, and with the exception of maybe Lydia stopping by with the offer of a sponge bath or something - - Stiles was so very much over people fussing over him. "Dude, stop it. I'm okay."

"Okay," Scott conceded. "So, what are you gonna say happened?"

"Oh, I was thinking of saying I got bitch slapped by a giant, supernatural bear."

Scott lifted a brow and kept staring at him.

"I dunno, I figured I'd say I was riding with you and you wrecked your bike and you miraculously escaped injury, while I got tossed around and banged up. Plausible, right?"

"My bike's not wrecked," Scott pointed out dryly.

"You'd never tell by looking at it."

"Thanks."

"No problem. I just wanted to, you know, make you feel included."

"Yeah, thanks for that. I'll remember that next time you wreck the Jeep."

"I've wrecked my Jeep exactly once," Stiles shot back. "All those other times were not my fault. I'm even gonna go so far to say, all those other times were _your_ fault since one way or another they all had to do with werewolf related drama."

He continued to bitch about that, in detail, lest Scott had forgotten any of the particular circumstances of Jeep-related misfortune, the rest of the way to school.

They just made first bell and scurried into English Lit, the last of the rain speckled stragglers. Lydia gave him a look when he scooted into his seat across from her. The teacher, doddering down the aisle handing back last week's thesis assignments forestalled any exchange of comments.

It wasn't until after class that Lydia sort of nonchalantly flounced up to him at his locker and remarked with a marked lack of concern. "So I assume you're feeling better?"

"Pretty much."

She lifted a brow. "Did your doctor clear you to come back to school?"

"I've got a follow up Monday, but I'm okay. My skull is like rock, a little knock only puts me down for so long."

Both brows went up at that, and her mouth twitched. He ducked his head and scratched at the sutures at the back of his skull. "The stitches itch like hell."

"Don't tear them, you idiot." She smacked his hand down, then sort of threw him entirely off his balance by leaning in and running her fingers through the hair at the back of his head, ghosting her fingertips across the handful of stitches. Her hair really, really smelled good. It felt like his heart was about to beat its way up his throat.

"I read up a little on head trauma," she said, her hand dropping down to rest against his shoulder, which went a long ways to dividing his attention from what she was actually saying. "You might expect more problems than usual with concentration, noise sensitivity, memory, irritability. And those are just the psychological symptoms. Physically, its not uncommon to experience headaches, dizziness and nausea for months after the injury."

He managed to exert some of that wavering focus back on her, feeling a little warm and fuzzy that she'd gone to the trouble to do a little reading for him.

"Yeah, I read the same thing. WebMD is scary as hell."

"Just try and stay out of trouble for a while." She smiled and patted his arm, before heading off.

"Easier said than done," he muttered, watching her go. Some sixth sense made him tear his gaze away from her and swing it across the hall, where one of the twins - - Aiden, it had to be Aiden, because Ethan couldn't have cared less who Lydia was cozying up to - - was standing there, glowering at him so hard, his inner wolf was almost shining through his eyeholes.

And though Stiles generally and admittedly lacked a certain sense of self-preservation when it came to backing down from confrontation - - provoking jealous, muscle bound werewolves seemed to be just a little too masochistic today, considering the way he felt.

It didn't stop him from returning Aiden's glare with a raised brow and a casually disdainful look of his own, before turning his back and pointedly ignoring him. Because angry wolves loved to be ignored.

Then Scott was heading towards him from his own locker and when Stiles looked back, Aiden was gone, either having followed Lydia down the hall, or not prepared to stand there and glower threateningly with Scott in attendance.

"She's like, all concerned about you." Scott gave him a grin, having missed the glowering twin across the hall altogether. "Maybe you should get hurt more often."

"You heard that?" Stiles accused.

"Sorry." Scott didn't seem that sorry.

Stiles shrugged, shouldering his backpack. "I'm thinking there's got to be a better way, but I'll take what I can get. She had her hand in my hair. Did you see she had her hand in my hair?"

Which was a really awesome way to start the day. It carried him all the way through third period, before calculus started making his head pound and dragged him down off his Lydia high. He sat through it, pinching the bridge of his nose, trying not to look at the numbers on page or board, waiting for the bell. When it rang and blessedly released him into the education-free lunch period, the first thing he did was pop a trio of Tylenol at the water fountain, before heading for the cafeteria.

Scott veered to intersect his path across the crowded cafeteria and they met at the end of the lunch line.

"Smells like Sloppy Joe's," Scott said, managing to sound hyped about the prospect of meat-flavored goop dripping off a bun. But then Scott would eat pretty much anything. Stiles gave him a disgusted look and reached for a Jell-O and a salad, not sure he was up to consuming anything with an actual smell today.

They plopped their trays down at their usual spot, and soon enough Allison and Lydia showed up, then Isaac- - their own little dysfunctional clique. At least they were twin free, Ethan and Aiden being a year behind, having infiltrated the school as sophomores and thus earning the joy of sharing the Freshman/sophomore lunch period. It made Stiles' life much more annoyance free not to have to sit through lunch watching Aiden leaning over Lydia practically drooling into her hair.

When Danny and another one of the Lacrosse team joined them, it pretty much nixed any conversational topic centering around supernatural related crap. Which was fine with Stiles, because he'd had his fill for a while and he was more than okay, the way his head was pounding, to sit there and let someone else fill the conversational void.

"You okay?" Scott leaned in to ask, taking note maybe of his uncharacteristic lack of intrusion into any given topic of discussion. Or maybe he just looked like he was sporting a tooth-grinding migraine.

"Frickin' calculus," he complained, as he systematically chopped his Jell-O into tiny cubes.

"Oh," Scott drenched a fry in Sloppy Joe juices, nodding in complete understanding. Scott and higher math were not entirely compatible.

"Mr. Swanson was especially grueling today," Allison, who shared the class with him, looked across at him sympathetically.

"It could have been worse," Lydia said to Allison. "He could have made you sit through another marathon of cheesy sci-fi."

"What?" Isaac looked up, and Allison gave Lydia a wide-eyed look of accusation for obviously spilling something she hadn't wanted spilled.

"You said you liked it." Isaac looked just a little hurt.

"It wasn't terrible," Allison cast Lydia one more narrow look, to which Lydia seemed supremely unconcerned, then looked to Scott for backup. "Right, Scott?"

Scott looked up from the remains of his lunch, caught off guard by the question. "Umm - - sure. It was sort of funny - - it was supposed to be sort of funny, right?"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Headache or no, Stiles had to know.

"There was a Doctor Who marathon last night," Isaac said, looking between Allison and Scott a little sulkily.

"Yeah, I know. I was watching it, too," Stiles said, eyeing Scott with a touch of annoyance himself, because how long had he been trying to get him to watch it with him? A damned long time. Like three doctors ago long. And Scott knew. He absolutely knew what Stiles' narrow look was for, because he shrugged a little apologetically and tried to explain his way out of the betrayal.

"Uh - -yeah, they were watching it when the power went out - - and we sort of picked it up when we went over to Allison's."

"Because she said she liked it," Isaac muttered.

"Hmm. That's sweet." Lydia smiled at the turmoil she'd incited. "You can put the wolf into the boy, but it obviously doesn't devour the geek."

They all looked at her, aghast, but Danny and the other guys down the table were deep into some lacrosse-oriented conversation and either didn't hear or didn't care what the hell Lydia was going on about.

The headache got worse, compounded by frustration when he caught Coach Finstock after economics to inquire about his lacrosse status.

"You know that two weeks of no physical contact sports is more a guideline than a rule," he reminded Coach, as he followed him towards the teacher's lounge.

"Head injury is nothing to be laughed at," Coach said distractedly. Which was utter and complete bull shit coming out of Couch's mouth, because if it had been a first line, top tier player, he'd have had them out on the field if they were bleeding from the ears. "Just tell McCall to be more careful. We'd have been in real trouble if he was out of commission."

"That's what you have to say to me?" Stiles stopped and gaped indignantly at the door to the lounge. "Seriously?"

But Coach wasn't paying him any more attention, making a beeline for the coffee maker. Which put Stiles in more of a mood than he'd already been teetering on. He called Coach a few choice names under his breath as he stomped away.

And the day kept getting better.

He was heading for his locker when Aiden loomed up behind him. He leaned on the locker next to Stiles, on the verge of being all up in his personal space.

"So what is up with you and Lydia?" He had this intense sort of half smile, half scowl thing going, like he wasn't sure if he wanted to have a reasonable conversation, or if he wanted rip Stiles' arms off a beat him to death with them.

Stiles was so, so not in the mood for jealous wolves. "What business is it of yours?"

Aiden's smile got a little less smiley and a little more scowly. "She's my girlfriend, is what?"

"Really?" Stiles lifted a brow. The way the space behind his eyes was throbbing, he was more than ready to shed a little metaphorical blood. "Have you told her that? Because last I heard you were - - what was it she said? - - oh, yeah, that you were pretty much just a 'good time', but not boyfriend material. That's gotta be a blow for the ol' self-esteem, huh?"

Aiden bristled, but Stiles was pretty confident that in the middle of a hall crowded with kids between classes, he was safe from physical retaliation for a verbal assault. He slammed his locker shut. "Go talk to her, if you're feeling insecure. It's not my job to stroke your ego."

Aiden growled - - out and out wolf growled in the middle of the hall - - and shoved him. Which was unexpected and momentarily sort of liberating, in a high-as-a-kite, acid tripping sort of way, for that split second that his feet left the ground and he was airborne, before he hit the row of lockers in what felt like the same damn place he'd hit the tractor a few nights ago. Then it just hurt.

Metal clanged, locks rattled, Kids squealed and scattered, and he slid down in a sprawl of backpack and screaming muscles and red around the edges indignation. And maybe Aiden had lashed out reflexively, without thinking, the wolf in him just little more unstable than the human - - maybe that bit of impulsiveness was the extent of his violence in the middle of the hall - - because he was standing there, looking a little shocked himself - - but then they'd never know one way or another, because Scott was just there. And it wasn't impulsiveness or reflex Stiles caught a glimpse of in his eyes when he slammed into Aiden, it was blind, animal rage. _Red-eyed_ rage.

Then students had a reason to scatter, because this wasn't your average hallway scuffle and God help them if anyone saw the glowing eyes or the claws - - fucking claws out in the middle of school - - and the only saving grace was that in Scott's hell hath no fury tackle of Aiden, they both crashed through the door of a presently empty lab classroom and took the fight out of public view.

Stiles pushed himself up with a grimace, back aching more stridently than his head for a nice change of pace and scrambled to the lab before any other gawking students. He got there in time to see Aiden hit the chalk board hard enough to crack the slate, a second before he launched himself off the wall and hit Scott taking them both over a set of lab tables, scattering test tubes and vials in their wake.

"Stop it. Goddamnit, stop it," he screamed, thinking there was never handy access to a good cattle prod when you needed to shock sense into a couple of crazed werewolves.

Then he got pushed aside, the other half of the twins rushing into that room, maybe having sensed half a school away when his brother was in the process of a knock down drag out wolf fight. He did more than scream at them to stop, wading in and risking personal injury to get a body in between them.

And maybe it was more than a twin thing, but a wolf thing in general that alerted every wolf in a quarter mile radius that shit was hitting the fan, because Isaac darted in, shoving past Stiles. And between the two of them, they managed to separate Aiden and Scott, a feat made easier by the fact that at least one of the two combatants was cooperating. Aiden backed off on his own, but Scott still had that crazed look on his face, and Isaac wasn't having an easy time, pushing him back, until Ethan, freed of having to deal with his brother gave him a hand and between the two of them they pushed Scott back, against the wall.

There was blood on Scott's hands. Blood on Aiden, blood on Isaac for his efforts. He wasn't fully wolfed out, but his claws and fangs were fully extended and his eyes were supernova red and there wasn't a whole lot of sanity in them. Which wasn't a good thing when kids were starting to venture in to see the mayhem and he could hear some teacher yelling for them to clear away outside in the hall.

"Scott! Get a fucking grip." He stalked right up, risking life and limb by leaning in past Isaac and Ethan and grasping Scott's jaw, making him focus on him. "Shut it down. Right now, or we're all in deep shit."

Scott took a shuddery breath, some fragment of focus coming back into his eyes. He stopped struggling against the grips of the other two wolves, staring at Stiles with a growing sort of dismay on his face. The color of his eyes faded from red to plain old brown around the time Coach, and Mr. Mueller came rushing in through the dispersing students.

"What the hell is going on in here?" Coach bellowed, both teachers taking in the partial destruction of the room. "Goddamned it, McCall, are you trying to make my life difficult?"

As if the brawl had taken place purely to fuck with the delicate balance of Coach's preseason lacrosse strategy, instead of Scott slipping and falling head first into a bout of PTSD related insanity.

"It's okay. Its all okay," Stiles said, patting Scott's chest as Isaac and Ethan backed off. Aiden was buttoning his shirt, covering what looked like a couple of bloody gouges in the t-shirt under it. "Just a little horseplay got out of hand. Right, guys?"

"What the hell happened to the blackboard?"

Stiles stared at the spider web of splinters on the board and fought through the ache behind his eyes for a reasonable answer. "I thought I felt a tremor? Didn't you guys feel a little tremor? Maybe it was an earthquake?"

Coach narrowed his eyes, then glanced at Mr. Mueller, who didn't have nearly the investment in keeping Scott from suspension as Coach did. "I've got this. Looks like somebody needs a little detention."

Which was just fine. Because Coach-style detention usually meant hard labor, cleaning up the locker room, scrubbing the showers or field maintenance. Anything Coach could think of to improve the state of his working conditions. And a little alone time, scrubbing mold out of the grout of the boys locker-room showers might be just what Scott needed to get his head back on straight.


	4. Chapter 4

**4**

She sat in the car, in the rain, watching the wolf's house. The radio, which she had discovered when the man had first taken her here, played softly in the background. One more amazing aspect of this world she had awoken in. One of her favorites. She'd enjoyed the throbbing tempo of the dance when she'd been just a girl, before the curse had taken her life away from her. And she'd been good at it, tossing her skirts and surging with the flow of rough melodies and clapping hands and stomping feet. The right music was like sex, primal and rhythmic.

And she'd found a rhythm last night, while she'd prowled the wolf's territory in the darkness, scenting out new hunting grounds. Testing her boundaries. She was afraid to try and change back into the form of the beast, lest the beast mentality overwhelm her again and trap her in that form. But there were degrees, she found, that she could revert, and still maintain enough of her humanity to retain control.

The wolf hadn't sensed her at all, outside his very home, until she'd allowed the beast to surge to the fore, had allowed her limbs to alter, to thicken with the beast's bulk of muscle and sinew and bone, felt power flood through her veins with a euphoric rush, and then everything with senses sharper than a stone had taken note of her. And she'd reveled, dancing in the darkness, leaving her mark and casting the entirety of this gathering of prey in their flimsy houses in darkness.

Until finally, she'd drawn the wolf out. And she'd crouched in the darkness and watched. Watched him and his pack mate, one of the wolves from the place where the Man had died, and the human bitch who'd shot her, creep out into the night. Young, all of them and ill at ease with the disruption she had caused in a place that was supposed to be safe territory.

She could have taken them all, if she'd wanted. Disemboweled the bitch with one swipe of her claws, torn the other wolf apart with hardly more effort, before she focused on her own. She'd have to hurt him to make him manageable. Cripple him badly enough to take the fight out of him, because young he might, be, but he'd proven he was not weak. She'd crouched there, pulse pounding over the prospect. And the beast in her surged to the fore at the notion of a quick, violent victory, but the human wanted to savor the chase.

Which found her, sitting in the car in the rain on his street the next day, watching the ebb and flow of human prey from their houses. She watched the wolf dart out into the rain, when a car pulled up, driven by _his_ prey. Her fingers tightened on the wheel, sight narrowing to hunter's vision, because that particular prey had eluded her more times than sheer luck might account and he held a special place in her esteem. When she killed him, it would not be out of hand. It would be part of the game.

But she needed a vantage. A place within the wolf's own terrain. The beast could never have laid in wait unnoticed, but the girl - - the girl could pass among them like a wraith if she wished. The girl could pretend very well, that she was still one of them.

There were many houses on this street, but most of them were full of prey that might be missed if they simply disappeared. Finally, she found one, where there was only one scent and that stale and lonely. A house not far from the wolf's, where the hedges were a bit unruly and the yard unkempt. She pulled her car into the drive, as if she had legitimate business, and knocked on the door. And again, until finally, it opened and a sour faced old man peered out at her.

"I'm not buying," he said, looking beyond her, as if he expected she was only the first of a line of intruders come to disturb his peace.

She canted her head, smiling. "Rude. You need manners, old man."

He blinked at her, surprised into momentary sputtering, indignation, before she ripped the door open and shoved him back into the shadows of a house that smelled, disgustingly of age and stale tobacco. She shut the door behind her as he was moaning, trying to scrambled backwards, cursing at her, threatening to summon the law.

She walked towards him, flexing her hands, letting fingers and talons extend, then she crouched, stopping his retreat with claws against his wrinkled throat.

"What - - what are you?" He croaked, rheumy eyes staring at her in horror.

She considered, then smiled. "I think you and I shall discover that together, old man."

# # #

Scott felt numb and it was a blessing. Because for a while there, he hadn't been in school - - hadn't been trying to rip apart someone who was a tentative friend - - he'd been in that barn, flashing back to that dreadful moment when the beast had flung Stiles across the blood filled space like he was a discarded doll. Back to that moment when everything was red tinged and throbbing with pain and he'd thought Stiles' was one more corpse among a field of corpses. And he'd done the only thing he could do - - he'd attacked.

But Stiles wasn't dead. And this wasn't that barn and Aiden wasn't the beast, no matter he'd damned well overstepped boundaries. And there was blood under his nails, blood on his hands and he stuffed them into his pockets trying to hide it, while Coach was yelling at him and Aiden in a voice that sounded oddly muffled, when Coach's yelling usually made him wince with its volume and intensity.

"Clean this up. All of you, clean this mess up. Earthquake my ass," Coach was grumbling, staring at the blackboard with its impact fractures. "Both of you see me after school for detention and be grateful that's all you're getting."

Then Coach was wandering out the room, muttering to himself.

"Scott?" Stiles positioned himself in Scott's line of vision, dipping his head to make eye contact. "You all there, buddy?"

He swallowed, nodding. Isaac was hovering, idly rubbing at his forearm. There was blood on his skin and the fading traces of healing claw marks. He'd done that, maybe, and he didn't even remember it.

The twins were standing across the room, Ethan frowning, Aiden looking just a little bit contrite.

"Sorry," Aiden said begrudgingly. "I shouldn't have - - sorry."

"What?" Stiles wasn't looking particularly gracious. Stiles was looking flustered and pale. "Sorry you used your freakin' werewolf strength and threw me across the hall in the middle of school? Sorry for that?"

Aiden glowered and Ethan shook his head in frustration and stepped in front of him. "He's sorry. It shouldn't have happened. It won't again."

"It better not," Isaac growled. And even though Stiles and Isaac weren't exactly BFF's or even close to it, when it came down to them and everyone else, Isaac was a creature that took pack mentality to heart. And he never had completely gotten over the things the twins had done under the guidance of Deucalion.

"Are you okay?" he asked Stiles.

Stiles turned back to look at him, this gauging expression in his eyes. "Yeah. I'm okay. You think I wasn't? Is that what you thought? Where were you at, Scott?"

Scott felt a little tightening in his chest, the forerunning of panic. This wasn't supposed to be happening. He was supposed to be putting it behind him. He'd been trying so hard to put it behind him. And he thought he had, up until that moment when he saw Stiles flung into the lockers and all his illusions of stability had come tumbling down.

Stiles caught him by the elbow, steering him towards the door, casting a look over his shoulder at the twins, at Aiden in particular. "This is your fault, dickhead, you clean it up."

They went outside, blowing off last period completely. It was moist and grey, but at least the rain had let up. Isaac trailed behind, worried furrow between his brows. Worried about him. Just like Stiles, and he really, really didn't want to be the center of that focus.

"I did that?" he asked Isaac, motioning to the now pretty much healed scratches on his arm.

Isaac shrugged, as if it were no big deal. But it was. It absolutely was.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"It's not your fault."

Scott half laughed at him in disbelief. "Then whose fault is it?"

"I can tick off a few names off the top of my head," Stiles said. "Scott, what the fuck happened, back there?"

Scott couldn't find the words. They were all jumbled up in a shameful, snarled knot in his head. He didn't want to think about it. He had been trying so hard to actively not think about it, to push it away and ignore it. To deny it. He _wanted_ to deny it. But he was beginning to have the sinking feeling that denying it might the worse thing he could do. He nodded, clenching his fists, blowing out a breath as he tried to gather scattered thoughts.

"I thought - - I thought you were dead - - all I could see was the vanago - - and blood and bodies - - and I could feel the pain - - like it had just happened." He could almost feel the tightness of the collar around his throat. The cold grip of metal just waiting to spew acid into his veins.

"Dude," Stiles caught his wrist, pulling his hand down from where he was rubbing at his neck. "Its not there."

Isaac just stood there behind Stiles, shifting a little, that look on his face that you'd think was furtive, if you didn't know him, but was really just Isaac, anxious and _thinking_.

"I'm okay," Scott took a breath, feeling the need to reiterate, even if none of them believed it now.

"No you're not," Stiles said bluntly. "You're having flashbacks in the middle of school and that is so not okay. You were halfway to wolf in the middle of the damned hallway and the only bright side is that it was Aiden who set you off and not some other regular prick without supernatural healing abilities."

Scott stared at him, feeling sick at the thought. Physically sick to the point that he took a shaky step backwards, towards a wet wooden bench and sat down, leaning over his knees. Stiles was right. He might have killed someone. That blood on his hands might have been life's blood.

Stiles sat down next to him, forearms on knees, so he could bend down and meet Scott's eyes. You need to work this out. We need to work it out. Because this whole thing - -" he waved a hand at the school in general. "Not good."

Which was understatement of the year. Scott swallowed, nodding.

"What'd you do to piss Aiden off, anyway?" Isaac asked.

Stiles swung a glance around to him. "What makes you think I did anything?"

Isaac lifted a brow, looking dubious. "Because I've talked to you."

Stiles narrowed his eyes indignantly. "Right and you're such a font of personality - -"

"Could you two please - - just be nice?" Scott asked tightly. There was a hard-edged ache behind his eyes to go with the upset in his stomach. And it had been a long time since he'd had a headache. About as long as he'd been a werewolf.

Isaac shrugged. Stiles took a breath, as if it were taking everything he had to just let it go. It probably was. Finally he mumbled. "He was up in my face about Lydia."

Scott stared at him, trying to piece that together in his head. "Why?"

"Because he's got an inferiority complex? Maybe the leather jackets and the big, expensive bikes are compensation for a tiny dick? How the hell should I know?"

"I'm thinking not," Isaac said.

Stiles rolled his eyes and that struck Scott as funny. He dug his hands in his hair and laughed.

"Yeah, see? That's just not right," Stiles muttered.

Detention was predictably, locker room grunt duty. Coach had a gleefully malicious glint in his eyes as he set them to their punishment. Which consisted of the banishment of the mildew and grunge lurking in the shower and Coach wanting the porcelain of the toilets so clean and shiny he could see his reflection. The only bright side was that Aiden got the toilets.

It didn't occur to him until after he'd been released, that he'd ridden to school with Stiles and was stranded on foot. He could walk home, it was only seven or eight miles, and get his bike, but he was going to be later to work than detention had already made him. But when he reached the parking lot, Stiles' jeep was there, the only car still in the student lot, Stiles inside with his back to driver's door and legs stretched out across the gearshift onto the passenger seat, fixated with something on his phone.

"Dude, you waited. Thanks." He opened the door and Stiles tore his eyes up from the phone, shrugging.

"If you're gonna catch shit for defending my honor - - it's the least I can do, right?"

Scott gave him a look, then slapped his ankles to get him to move his feet.

"So - - home or work?"

"Work. Deaton will give me a lift home."

Stiles pulled out of the lot, conspicuously silent for a whole handful of minutes, before he cast a look Scott's way and commented.

"You realize, that other than a few sort of general, really unenlightening comments about what happened that day, you've just sort of glossed over the details of what Dupont did to you, right?"

"Yeah." There was nothing to do but agree with that assessment. He hadn't talked about it. He hadn't wanted to. He still didn't want to.

"And I let it slide - - I guess because I figured you'd been traumatized enough and didn't need to relive it."

Scott sank a little deeper into the seat, dreading where this was going.

"But I'm thinking maybe not talking about it is sort messing you up on the inside. That there are things mucking around in your subconscious eating away at you."

"Did you do a little reading while you were waiting for me?" It came out sounding a little sullen and Stiles cast him a side-eyed, arch-browed glance.

"Why yes. Yes, I did. And you will talk to somebody. Me. Deaton. Hell I don't care if its Derek - - but you've gotta open up to somebody and its not like you've got a range of options that are gonna understand about the whole werewolf/hunter scenario. Everything I've read says talking about it is the first step to dealing with it."

"All the reading you did in the hour you were waiting for me?"

"Dude, don't deflect. Deflection and denial are symptoms."

"Stiles, I'm okay. It's only been a few days since - - I'm still having nightmares is all and it's just got me tense. It's getting better."

"Today was better?"

"Today was messed up. It won't happen again." He wouldn't let it happen again.

"Dude, you didn't know it was happening today." Stiles snapped, jamming on the breaks and pulling off the side of the road in a spatter of mud and gravel. He reached out and caught Scott's wrist, drawing his hand away from his neck. He hadn't realized he was scratching at it. "Tell me about the collar, Scott. Tell me why there was so much blood on the ground under you in that fucking barn. Tell me anything."

He pulled his hand out of Stiles' grip, having the strongest urge to just open the door and get the hell out of the jeep and the pressure Stiles' was applying. Running seemed the smartest thing to do when all he had to do was shut his eyes and he could feel the burn of the poison flooding his bloodstream. Taste the blood in his throat from either the acid or him screaming himself raw. Smell it, acrid in the air, and feel the dirt and straw grinding into his back when he writhed on the floor in agony while that bastard stood there casually enjoying the infliction of it.

"Scott," Stiles voice got through, soft and worried, and he opened his eyes, focusing on Stiles' pale face.

"Claws," Stiles jerked his chin down, and Scott looked at his hands and the fully extended claws.

"Oh," Scott remarked a little breathlessly, and with an effort pulled them back.

"You can't even think about it, without going back there, can you?" Stiles asked quietly.

He shook his head, stricken. "I try not to think about it."

"Dude, that's not helping."

He looked blindly out the window, caught himself scratching at his neck this time and wondered how often he'd been worrying at it, at that ghost weight of the collar, without even knowing.

"There were needles on the inside of it," he said dully, trying to find a place to describe it that didn't put him smack dab back in the center of it all over again. "Every time he pushed a button - -it injected acid - - he said it was acid - - right into my bloodstream. It felt like - - I was on fire from the inside out. I was, I guess - - it was burning things up inside - - faster than my body could heal it. I didn't think anything could - - hurt like that and be survivable. Lucky me with the healing thing, right? He could just wait for me to heal enough, so that he could do it all over again."

"Oh, God," Stiles whispered.

"He said - - they said - - they were going to take me out of the country, so he could take his time, before they sold me to somebody who'd do it all over again before he hunted me down and killed me. And I would have rather died, right there - - I swear to god, I wished he'd just killed me - -"

"No you don't," Stiles snapped. "And that didn't happen. None of that happened, because you have friends who wouldn't let it. Stop dwelling on the shit that could have been and focus on what actually was."

"Like that's better?"

"He had you for a day and it was the worst fucking day of your life - - but like you said, it could have been for a lot longer. So yeah, that's better."

Scott leaned his temple against the cold glass of the window, clenching his hands into fists to keep them from shaking. Everything wanted to shake with the onslaught of memory. He'd thought he'd been doing such a good thing pushing it to the back of his mind, trying to partition it off from the reality of his real life. But he wasn't so deluded that he didn't realize his ability to compartmentalize was pretty sketchy at best. And now that Stiles had him thinking about it, it was just right there, bloody and abrasive and exhausting. The collar had been this brutal, agonizing weapon Dupont had used against him, and he could still feel it, like it had branded itself into his nerve endings. Dehumanizing, like the cage, reducing him to barely more than the beast Dupont had called him when he was writing in its grip. He hated the memory of that. Hated the notion of his humanity stripped away. Hated the fact that he woke sometimes, shaken out of sleep by the nightmare feel of Dupont's hands on his skin, the scent of Dupont's arousal in the air, strong as the blood scent and that was a whole different sort of mortification.

"I don't want to talk about it anymore. Not right now," he said softly. "I'm late for work."

Stiles sat there, staring for a moment, then nodded, turning the engine over and pulling back onto the road.

# # #

The first thing Stiles did when he got home, was kick off his clothes, turn the shower on as hot as he could stand it and step under it, letting the hot water ease away the newly awakened ache in his back. The dirty stench of Dupont's ghost was harder to wash away. Scott had told him a fraction - - the merest tip of the iceberg of what was tearing him up - - and even that had been enough to make Stiles want to find whatever icebox they had the slashed up remains of Dupont's body stored and kick the dead flesh until his foot went numb.

He pressed his forehead to the tiles and seethed for a while, water sluicing down his back, cursing Dupont mostly, Aiden a little, Scott a little less, but him mostly because he was being stubborn to his own detriment. Not that Stiles didn't understand, because some things just weren't easy to admit. Discussing the method of your own destruction was probably a little hard to have a casual conversation about and Scott had a hard time putting feelings to words, even at the best of times. Oh, Scott had all sorts of feelings - -he was empathetic as hell - - he just tended towards the doing over the talking about the doing most of the time.

When the water temperature began to cool down, he figured the hot water heater had given its best and it was time to get out before the hot shower turned cold. He got dressed, popped a couple of Tylenol and eased himself down in front of the computer. Scott had been right, an hour's worth of reading on PTSD did not an expert make, and he was pretty far out of his depths. Maybe Deaton would be better suited to help, if Scott would talk to him. It had to be somebody Scott trusted. It had to be somebody in the know, because the issues that needed the light of day couldn't be cleverly skirted around, even if Scott had been capable of clever skirting.

It occurred to him, that maybe he should consult with Lydia. He'd lay odds that if he called her right now, she'd have reams of useful knowledge just lying around, unused in that amazing head of hers. The more he thought about it, the more it seemed a stellar idea. So he picked up the phone and called.

# # #

It was a little after eight, when Deaton dropped Scott off at home after work. He hadn't said anything to him, even though he probably should have. But after the little chat in the Jeep with Stiles, he felt roughly like he'd been dragged through enough spiky, briar filled bramble to fill his quota for the day. And if talking about it was somehow supposed to make him feel better about it - - well, then talking about it was overrated.

His mom's car was in the drive when Deaton dropped him off, the porch light this inviting beacon in the darkness. He could smell the scent of sausages and pasta sauce from the road. His mom wasn't the best cook in the world, but she made a mean spaghetti and the thought of a big pot of that waiting inside, made the world a little less cold.

He tromped through the back porch, stomping his boots on the welcome mat to shed mud. He headed into the kitchen and stopped, in the midst of dropping his backpack on the counter by the door, caught off guard by his mom sitting at the kitchen table in the midst of a conversation with a strange girl.

A strange, stunningly gorgeous girl who looked up at him from her seat at the end of the table before his mom turned to smile a welcome at him.

"Hey, sweetheart. Supper's almost ready."

He blinked at her, trying really hard not to stare like an idiot at the girl, who's presence seemed to be a more of an important topic of conversation than the timetable for supper.

"Ummm - - great?"

His mom's smile widened. "Scott, this is Mr. Klutsky's grand niece, Zlata. She's come to stay with him for a while."

"Klutsky?" he was having trouble piecing together the little things, like names his mom seemed convinced he ought to know, when he swore to God the girl looked like she ought to be on the cover of a Victoria's Secret catalogue and she smelled like earth and sex - -

He took a breath, tearing his eyes off her, absolutely sure that his level of stress today was seriously impacting his ability to form rational, coherent thoughts. "Oh. Mr. Klutsky down the street?"

"Yes, _that_ Mr. Klutsky," his mom humored him, way, way more perceptive than he was comfortable with. "He's not doing well and she'll be taking care of him."

"Hello." The girl, Zlata rose, padding around the table towards him with this graceful, swaying stride.

"Your mother, she has told me of you," she had an accent that sounded Eastern European. It was inexplicably hot. "I am, how you say, excited to have you?"

"To meet," his mom corrected with a laugh, rising herself to go the stove.

"Yes, as you say. My English - -it is not so good." The girl looked up at him from under her lashes and thank God that he was the only one with hearing sensitive enough to pick up on the sudden uptake in his pulse.

"So - - so you're not from here. From the States?" He managed to ask that without stumbling over his words, which was a good sign.

"No," she agreed, still looking up at him, still standing close enough that he sort of wanted to take a step backwards, but wasn't sure if that would seem rude.

"She's from Poland," his mom supplied.

"And - - will you be going to school here?" He regretted asking it the moment it left his mouth, because the way she looked, this sort of ageless bone structure, she could have been anywhere from seventeen to twenty-five.

"I mean, unless you're too old?" he tried to correct and from her raised brow and his mom's over the shoulder look, figured that that addendum hadn't actually helped.

But she didn't seem offended. In fact, she canted her head, this faint pleased curve on her mouth and said. "Yes. I think school will be a very good thing. Very good."


	5. Chapter 5

**5**

It had been so easy, walking into the wolf's home. All it had taken was a smile and a story of her selfless act of coming to a strange country to care for an ailing relative. A friendless girl alone in a new town, simply attempting to introduce herself to new neighbors and the wolf's mother had welcomed her. Had offered her the hospitality of an honored guest, food and drink and conversation. Telling her everything she might hope to know without even the threat of blood and pain. The wolf had a name. As did the other wolf who lived under this roof with this pure human woman with the dark, friendly eyes and the bright smile. She imagined how the wolf - - Scott was his name - - might react if he came home to find pieces of her scattered about the house.

Badly, she thought. He took the protection of his pack and his prey to heart. She had seen that, repeatedly. Had felt the sting of his claws and teeth as he'd done just that.

But she restrained the urge, sitting at the table in the kitchen, swirling ice in the tea that the woman gave her, coming up with stories that the woman seemed to find pleasing. She had always been good at saying things that people wanted to hear, regardless of truths. A good whore could flatter the ego as well as the body and she had been very good at her job. Just as deftly she eased information from her host, no particularly grueling task, very few mothers being reluctant to talk of their sons. She learned many things before the wolf returned home from the place his mother said he worked, caring for sick animals.

She heard him walking up the drive, scented him before he stepped into the screened back porch and had to restrain the claws that wanted to curl out of her fingers.

She had been afraid that he might recognize her scent if she got too close, and that this game would end before it had started, and she'd been prepared to shed blood, to bring out her beast and drench his home in blood if need be, but he had not. Even when she'd stepped close enough to feel the heat of his skin, to inhale the scent of him when it was not tinged with blood and fear and pain - - he was ignorant of what she truly was. Or if some primal part of him did recognize a hint of familiarity in her, the rational part of him refused to make the connection. The wolf in him no match for the male that couldn't get past the awareness of the female in her. Stupid, like most of his sex, when it came to the simple allure of sex. But he smelled good, and he was pretty to look at and his bumbling grasp for coherent words was amusing.

She'd leaned against the table, staring at him, while his mother asked some meaningless question about registering for school. She imagined raking her claws down his bare skin. Drawing blood and licking it up before the wounds could close. She imagined doing other things to him, dark and carnal, and ran the tip of her tongue along the edge of her upper lip in appreciation. His eyes followed the movement, until he tore them away, his pulse pounding beneath the thin layer of his skin. He made some faltering excuse of washing up before supper, before he snatched his backpack and fled, leaving her alone with his mother.

Stupid wolf, to leave another predator among _his_ prey. But a lucky one, because now that she'd stood in a room with him, seen how easy he was to engage, she wanted the game all the more. If she spilled the blood of his prey and his pack too soon, he'd realize the game for what it was, and she preferred him ignorant of the chase until it was too late to elude her.

# # #

"So how sore are you this morning?" Scott caught up with Stiles on the sidewalk between parking lot and school.

Pretty damn was the factual answer, but another long, hot shower this morning and a huge dollop of Icy/Hot slathered on before he'd left home, along with a handful of painkillers had lessoned the overall ache. So he just shrugged and manned up with a casual. "I'm fantastic. You'd barely know there's a bruise the size of Africa decorating my back."

Scott gave him a dubious look, but didn't call him on that wry denial. Hoping maybe that Stiles wouldn't call him on the inevitable 'I'm okay,' that was bound to escape his lips the moment Stiles tried to pin him down on the state of his own mental health.

"You smell like menthol," Scott remarked, wrinkling his all too perceptive nose.

"Yeah, well, that's because I've got it smeared all over my back. Get used to it. It's my new best friend. What?" He finally asked, because Scott was sort of bouncing a little with the containment of something that obviously wanted to burst out to see the light of day.

They hit Stiles' locker first, and Scott leaned on the adjoining one while Stiles rearranged books from bag to locker.

"I met a girl last night."

"Yeah? At the vet's?" Stiles paused, casting him a glance.

"No. At my house."

Stiles stopped outright and gave him his full appraisal. "What do you mean? What girl?"

"You know Mr. Klutsky from down the street?"

"The old guy who used to scream at us for trespassing if we even walked along the edge of his yard?"

"Yeah, him. She's his niece or grandniece or something, _from Poland_, and she's come to live with him."

"Sucks for her. From Poland? Like Eastern European Poland, not Poland, Idaho?"

"Is there a Poland Idaho?" Scott looked skeptical.

Stiles slammed his locker shut and lifted a brow. "I'm gonna go out on a limb and make the assumption she didn't have hairy knuckles and a unibrow?"

"Dude, she was gorgeous. Almost like - - scary gorgeous. Is that a thing?"

Stiles considered while they headed for Scott's locker. "You mean like, so hot your junk just sort of shrivels up in intimidation because you know she's so far above your league she's gonna get a nosebleed if she happens to look down on you?"

Scott opened his mouth, then shut it, shaking his head. "Nooo, that definitely didn't happen. But yeah, I guess there was maybe an intimidation factor going on, because stupid, stupid things kept coming out of my mouth."

Stiles grinned. "Oh, my God, are you crushing on the new neighbor girl?"

"No," Scott denied it. "I met her for like ten minutes."

"Yeah, and you were in love with Allison before she even knew your name. You're easy like Sunday morning, baby."

"Fuck off. And what the hell does that even mean?"

"Dude, you need to brush up on your classic tunes."

But Scott had stopped listening and was staring past him, towards the administration office. Stiles turned to see what had his attention, and felt his own jaw sag a little. Hell, half the guys in the hall had turned to stare at the girl that had just come out of the office in the company of Principal Heller himself. And maybe scary gorgeous was a thing after all, because she was the sort of hot that made your mouth go dry and your palms start to itch a little in the hopes of a good long bout of masturbation.

"Holy shit," he whispered. "Its like that movie - - you know the one where the porn star moves in next door and rocks this kid's world . . ."

"She's not a porn star," Scott hissed at him, edging a little further behind him as she happened to glance their direction.

"How do you know?" Stiles countered in side-whisper. "She could be. And Eastern Euro porn is dirty, dirty stuff."

"How would you even know?" Scott was definitely trying to avoid notice, if Stiles was any judge and Stiles liked to think he was.

"I have a computer, dude. _And_ a lack of a sex life - - I know of what I speak. Are you actually trying to hide from the pretty girl?"

Scott rolled his eyes and put his back to the lockers. "No."

Stiles lifted a dubious brow. "Then what are you doing?"

Scott spent a moment actually considering, before he relented and fessed up. "Okay, maybe. Last night, I swear to God, it was almost like she was coming on to me - - without like, actually doing any coming on - -"

Stiles had to turn to gap at him. "And this is what has you freaked out and hiding behind me and a locker? Has this whole traumatic stress thing short circuited your brain?"

"No. It was just - - I dunno - - a little weird."

"You're a little weird."

He got a wry look for that, which he ignored in favor of watching the girl walk off with Heller intent on giving her the personal tour himself. When she was safely gone, the hallway reverted back to its normal pattern of activity, guys able to focus their attention back to whatever it was they'd been doing when she'd disrupted their routines. He leaned his shoulder against a locker while Scott finished shuffling books and decided to change the subject while Scott was more than likely still dutifully treading water through the last one.

"So, you talk to Deaton last night?"

Scott hesitated, hand clenching just a little on the door of the locker, before he slammed it shut and shrugged. "It got busy. I didn't get the chance."

He slung his backpack over one shoulder and headed towards first period with Stiles on his heels.

"Right. Because its no big deal."

Scott made a noncommittal sound and slouched into his seat, pulling out his English lit book in lieu of giving a real answer. Stiles bored holes in the side of his head in a glare of silent annoyance until Lydia slipped into the seat across from him. She gave him a raised brow and a pointed flick of the eyes towards Scott, and he shrugged, rolling his eyes at the frustration of having to deal with stubborn people.

She cornered him in the hall after class with a frown and a set of narrowed green eyes.

"You neglected to mention what started that fight yesterday," she accused, so he figured someone had filled her in today on the details of the little hallway altercation. And on the one hand - - good. He wasn't above enacting little petty vengeances, and he hoped she bit Aiden's head off - - or better yet, came to her senses when it came to sexing it up with unstable, uber aggressive werewolf assholes. On the other, damned if he was going to go crying to a girl - - most especially Lydia - - that he'd gotten roughed up by the asshole in question. It was bad enough he had Scott fighting his battles for him. So all in all - -yeah, he was a little conflicted about the whole thing.

"Did I? Yeah, well, that wasn't really a pertinent detail."

"Not a pertinent detail?" He could almost see little tendrils of frustration curl up off of her.

"What did Aiden say?"

"I haven't talked to Aiden, yet," she hissed. "Why would he pick a fight with you? What did you do?"

"Why does everyone assume I did something?" he complained. "Maybe he was just in a shitty mood. Maybe it was his time of the month."

The bell rung and kids started scurrying towards second period. Lydia stabbed a finger against his shoulder and said with a tight smile. "You are not as amusing as you like to think you are, Stiles. Don't think I won't be talking to Aiden."

# # #

So lunch turned out to be an interesting affair. Scott who was already on edge, had apparently gotten cornered by Allison on his way to the cafeteria, and honest concern or not, Allison was maybe the last person Scott needed to be talking with in an attempt to hash out his emotional issues. She just added one more snarl to the tangle. Which was pretty clear from the squirrelly look Scott was presently wearing.

So Stiles did what any self-respecting best friend would do and inserted himself between Allison and Scott as they were getting into the lunch line.

"It's cool if I cut in line, right? Right." He slid his trey down on the rail, jostling the two of theirs forward and backwards respectively. Allison frowned, cutting him a look that clearly said 'I was in the middle of something, do you mind?' Because she obviously had no idea about those invisible boundary lines that applied to how much of your ex's private shit you were entitled to wade into, without sending him into a spiral of conflict and confusion.

Stiles shot her a return look that consisted of momentarily narrowed eyes and a set of raised brows that just as plainly enunciated, 'back off, you're not helping.' Scott just reached for a couple of cartons of milk and a peanut butter square and pretended the two of them weren't engaging in silent, semi-hostile telepathy.

Allison finally gave it up, pressing her lips and sighing as she moved down the line. Obviously either Isaac or Lydia had clued her in and she was worried, which Stiles could commiserate with. It was just that after the talk last night in the Jeep, Stiles was getting the feeling that if Scott got pushed too hard, from too many directions, he was just going to cut and run and that wasn't going to help anybody.

Lydia was already at the table, picking through a salad and idly flipping the pages of a magazine. Allison sat down next to her, and Isaac padding over with his trey and scooting in next to her, made it their usual fivesome.

"Coach is ranting about the misery he's planning on inflicting on the next guy who misses practice," Isaac opened with.

"Yeah, he was going on about it yesterday during detention," Scott said, looking relieved that the topic of conversation had to do with anything other than him and or the cause of the said detention. "So I guess we probably ought not miss practice this afternoon."

"I'll be there. Sitting on the bench," Stiles complained.

"How will that be any different than usual?" Isaac inquired.

"Oh yeah? Coach didn't even know your name until you started sprouting fur and howling at the moon."

"Who howls at the moon?"

"It's a metaphor, dumb ass, in case you didn't know."

"I know what a metaphor is."

"Do you know what's funny, Allison?" Lydia blithely interrupted their little back and forth, a cherry tomato speared on the prongs of her fork. "I would have thought Scott and Isaac would have been the two having the little bitch fights over you, but it turns out, its Isaac and Stiles having them over Scott. Its cute."

Isaac scoffed, rolling his eyes. Stiles narrowed his, giving Lydia an offended glare.

If Scott had an opinion on the matter, and if his exasperated expression was any indication, it was probably along the lines of wishing he were somewhere other than sitting at the table with the lot of them.

"Ha ha, Lydia, you're hilarious," Stiles started dryly, but Lydia was looking past him, one brow arched, a skeptical expression in her eyes. Stiles looked over his shoulder just in time to see Scott's new neighbor, trey in hand, heading towards their table. Isaac looked up, Allison did with a slight furrow between her brows and Stiles nudged Scott, just in time for him to look up as the girl slid into the seat next to him.

"I sit here, with you. Is that good," she smiled in the wake of that statement. And Stiles leaned around Scott with a total lack of anything resembling tack to look at her. Because close up, she was really something, and it wasn't even all just looks, it was like the way she moved and the accent which was nine kinds of hot and the way her eyes were sort of lazy and beckoning and just a little bit predatory. He could sort of imagine her writhing around on the hood of a car in a White Snake video.

"Zlata. Hi," Scott made a miraculous recovery, after his initial fumble of open-mouthed shock. "I see you got registered. I mean, obviously, you got registered."

"Yes," she agreed. "They are very nice here. Very accommodating. Though I know no one. So I see you, Scott, and you I know."

"Who are you again?" Lydia was smiling that false smile she wore when the metaphorical claws were on the verge of coming out.

"She's a transfer student," Stiles supplied. "From Poland."

The girl leaned a little past Scott and canted her head at him, mouth twitching.

"I'm Stiles, by the way, since he sucks at introductions."

"Stiles," she repeated. "I make sure to remember."

"This is Zlata - - she moved in down the street from me." Scott informed the table at large. "She's staying with her uncle. These are my friends, Zlata," and he proceeded to introduce them.

"It is good to meet you," Zlata said. "I hope to learn many things here in your country."

"Poland?" Lydia said musingly. "Your accent sounds more Russian."

The girl looked up from the contemplation of the fried chicken nugget she held between her fingers. "You have expertise with accent?"

Lydia smiled. "I have expertise in quite a few things."

"I am from Gorlitz, very, very far east." The girl said, before leaning in towards Scott and asking. "There is actual meat in this?"

Scott looked at the nugget in her hand and smiled. "That's sort of debatable. If you drench it in enough honey mustard, it almost doesn't matter."

She looked at him quizzically, until he indicated the little sealed packet of dipping sauce on her plate. When she still looked doubtful, he picked up the container and pulled the foil back for her.

"I swear, its edible."

"Edible, yes. Healthy - - I'd lay odds against," Stiles added his opinion on the subject of lunchroom prepared, deep-fried, mystery chicken parts.

"I visited Warsaw last summer. It was beautiful. So how long are you here for?" Allison asked, the faintest little line still between her brows.

The girl shrugged, eyes that were so light a brown they were almost gold flitting over Allison with lazy interest. "Until my uncle is better, I think. Maybe longer. All depends."

"On what?" Stiles asked.

"I would imagine it depends on what sort of visa she has," Lydia said. "Student, travel, work - - they all have expirations."

Zlata lifted a brow, not bothering to respond to that, turning instead to fix that lazy look she'd been directing at Allison towards Scott. "So your mother, she says perhaps if I ask nicely, you show me the way around Beacon Hills."

Scott blinked at her, obviously caught off guard by the blatant parental set up. Stiles sort of wanted to shudder a little with him from the sheer embarrassment factor of having your mom think you were so pitiful that she felt the need to try and arrange a hook up for you. "She said that? I mean - - sure. I could do that. But it's not that big a town. There's not that much to see."

Stiles kicked Scott's ankle under the table, because mom set-up or not, the girl was gorgeous and she wanted to hang out with him and when was the last time that had happened. He needed to approach this situation with a whole hell of a lot more enthusiasm than he was showing.

"Well hello, new girl." They all looked up at the approach of Troy Fischer and the group of preppy douchebags that sauntered in his shadow. All them seniors and all them the sort of upper crust elitist pricks that thought they were better than kids who's parents didn't pull in seven figure salaries.

Stiles hated Fischer with a passion born all the way back in middle school when the vehemence of newly hatched teenagers was at its most virulent stage. Fischer had been a bully of the gold plated caliber and Stiles and Scott had suffered from, admittedly, a severe case of dorkism, that they hadn't started to shed until they were well into high school. And though Scott had gone through a phase of - - oh - - about fifteen years of being generally oblivious to a lot of what was going on around him - - Stiles had never missed a jibe or a cut directed towards him or his that failed to work him into a frothing tizzy.

"What do you want, Troy?" Stiles gave him the evil eye, which was ignored in favor of Fischer and his cronies crowding around Zlata with smug, appreciative leers on their faces.

"Just wanted to give the new transfer student a proper welcome and let her know just in case she hadn't figured it out on her own, that she was sitting at a table full of freaks and geeks - - no offense Lydia."

"Screw you, Fischer," Stiles shot back. Isaac narrowed his eyes, glowering from under his lashes, maybe having been the victim of a bit of Fischer's bullying himself, before catching the incurable malady of lycanthropy.

Lydia just rolled her eyes, as if she were supremely bored with the whole thing.

Zlata didn't seem particularly impressed either, though she did cant her head and look Fischer up and down, as if she were sizing him up, or imagining what he looked like under his clothes. Maybe she found him wanting, because she shrugged and said. "This table, it is not so bad."

"Love that accent," Fischer said, leaning over Scott, a hand on his shoulder, to smile his toothpaste add smile, at Zlata close up. "So there's a party Saturday night at my house and I would love to have you there. You know, if you wanna see how the better half lives here in Beacon Hills."

"Right. One of your famous, bring your own roofie shin digs?" Stiles asked.

"You're not invited, Stilinski. In fact, if I see you there, I'll call your daddy and make him drag you away for trespassing."

"Wouldn't be the first time," Stiles fired back with a tight smile.

Fischer straightened up, patting Scott's shoulder with way too much familiarity. He was lucky he got the hand back whole, considering the volatility of Scott's mood swings of late and the disgruntled look Scott shot him from under half lowered lashes. "You can come McCall, I'm all for supporting the team. And with Jackson gone, you'll need all the support you can get."

"I'm on the team," Stiles muttered. "And I'd rather eat dirt."

"See you there," Fischer winked at Zlata, supremely confident in the lure of smarmy charm and boatloads of money.

"I hate him," Stiles ground out as Fischer and his sycophants made their way out of the cafeteria. "I mean, I really, really hate him."

"I know," Scott commiserated. "Just breathe until you don't see red around the edges and it'll be okay."

"He does throw good parties," Lydia remarked. "Almost as good as mine."

"You're not going?" Stiles gaped at her.

Lydia shrugged. "It never hurts to network."

"This party, it sounds interesting," Zlata said.

"Only if you like elitist assholes hitting on you," Stiles said, then added reluctantly. "And booze and like probably really good snacks and a killer sound system - - so I've heard."

"What is this killer sound system?"

"Music," Scott told her.

Her eyes glinted in interest. "Music I like. And dancing. You come to this party with me?"

Scott blinked at her, along with about a third of their little portion of the table. "Ahh - - well, Troy's sort of a dick - -"

Stiles snorted explosively at that understatement.

"- - And I've got a lot of work to catch up on - -"

"Oh my God, seriously, dude? Homework excuse? Zlata, he's so there." Stiles rolled his eyes, at that blatant attempt to wriggle out of a situation any other guy would be salivating to get dragged into and leaned across Scott to assure her of complete cooperation.

Scott glowered at him. But he couldn't hold it, because Zlata had her hand on his forearm, nails idly making little patterns on his skin. Stiles could literally see the gooseflesh rising on Scott's arm.

"Good. You come to my house tomorrow night and we go to this party where there is music and dancing." She smiled, then rose, and sashayed off, leaving her tray on the table and Scott looking pretty thoroughly flabbergasted.

"Forward, much?" Lydia sniffed.

"She does seem a little aggressive," Allison seconded, sort of under her breath.

"Aggressive's not a bad thing," Stiles said. "Dude, your chances of getting laid again, before you graduate, have just shot up in a huge way."

"Shut up," Scott muttered, actually blushing. "You are so not funny."

"I told him the same thing," Lydia remarked. "But he may be right. I'm picking up a vibe from her that just screams slut." She paused, considering, then waved a hand and added. "Either that or serial killer."

"Or a porn star," Stiles added. "I already called that one."

Scott rolled his eyes, then took a breath, more than likely still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that he'd been told in no uncertain terms that he had a date on Saturday night.

"She's not any of those things," he said reasonably.

"And that's not really fair," Allison seconded him. "We don't know her. Maybe she's just trying really hard because she's new here."

"You're so sweet," Lydia patted the back of Allison's hand. "You keep that in mind when she's doing your ex."

"Oh my God, I'm sitting right here," Scott complained.

"I don't like her," Isaac said bluntly, his first contribution to the conversation since the girl had inserted herself into their company.

"And there you have it," Stiles waved a hand. "If Isaac doesn't like her, with his keen sense of sniffing out personality flaws, she must be a serial killing porn star."

Scott gave him an exasperated look, before pushing his chair back with a screech of metal against tile. "I've got reading to do before next period." He grabbed up his tray, and the one Zlata had left and headed for the trashcans.

"Later then," Stiles called after him, just a little annoyed at being ditched. Scott generally had untapped reserves of patience, but then he'd had a pretty awful week, so maybe he deserved a little slack. He glanced back around to meet an amused smirk from Isaac.

"Really?"

Isaac just shrugged, getting up himself. Allison followed suit, leaving just him and Lydia and Lydia's arched brow and pursed lips.

"So I talked to Aiden," she launched that salvo at him and he snapped his mouth shut on the immediate need to deny everything.

"Yeah?" he prompted warily.

"And you're a troublemaker."

"What? Me? I'm not the one who went all alpha male in the middle of the hall."

"No, that was Scott, having to deal with the mess you started. Just using him for sex? Really?"

He opened his mouth and shut it, trying to remember if he'd actually said that. "That's not exactly what I said - - It's not my fault he has low self-esteem."

She stared at him long enough with those glittery green eyes of hers to make things below the belt start to sort of shrivel, until she finally shrugged and said. "You're weren't wrong. But next time, if the guy I'm seeing needs a little brutal honesty, why don't you leave that up to me. Now, I found quite a few studies on early onset PTSD if you wanted to come over after school and take a look?"

The only thing he could do, in the interests of self-preservation, was nod in complete agreement and thank whatever fates were watching over him that he'd gotten off that easy.


	6. Chapter 6

6

The old man had proved useful, so she'd kept him alive. His reputation as a recluse kept the neighbors away, which worked to her benefit. That same antisocial trait had made him proficient in the ways of conducting business from the false security of his home. She'd told him what she'd needed in the way of school registration and in his cowering fear for his life, he had found the documents she needed on his computer, printed them out and put his signature to them. She'd rewarded him for it by not tearing his throat out and allowing him to live for the time being, locked in a room at the back of the house in the event she might need to produce him to concrete the validity of her presence here.

She had discovered the mesmerizing miracle of television, and between that and her foray into the school to stalk the wolf, she came to the conclusion that her stolen wardrobe was sorely lacking. Zlata was a creature that had enjoyed very few luxuries in her former life, but had lusted after them fervently. So she took the card taken from the Man's sister and she discovered the decadent joy of shopping. Of purchasing without limit whatever bauble caught her eye. Clothing that women wore in the very streets, which in her day, might only have been donned within the privacy of a house of ill repute. She reveled in it.

She had been among prey all the day that had groveled for her when they realized the gold she carried in the form of the card, and no matter the human flesh she wore, she could not shake the instincts of the beast that crouched at her core. She had imagined no few times, the terror in the eyes of her prey, the tearing of flesh, the breaking of bones, the taste of hot blood and fresh, raw meat between her teeth. And they had never guessed, those eager, soft skinned creatures, how hard she fought not to rend them to pieces.

Just as in the school they'd never guessed, so eager to welcome her, to invite her into their midst. Except perhaps for the wolf's pack. The wolves were wary, she could scent it on them, but neither of them entirely certain why. Hers, she had spooked and his confusion amused her. The other one had been sullen and suspicious, but if he'd had any idea she was anything but a girl, he might have done more than cast her uncertain looks. The girls, the bitch with the arrows and the one with the hair like flame had been predictably territorial when it came to another female invading their domain. But the boy, the prey who had the most to fear from her, had been oblivious. Helpful even in chiding the wolf into ignoring his own instincts. Prodding him until he relented and veered in the direction she wanted him to go.

And dutifully he showed up at the old man's house after dark on Saturday night, a polite greeting on the tip of his tongue, before he got a decent look at her and it stalled on his half open mouth. The heels were high, the skirt short and flowing and the corset, black and velvet, did everything in its power to enhance the swell of her breasts. He tore his eyes away, snapped his mouth shut and swallowed.

"Wow. You look really nice."

She smiled, looking him up and down, inhaling the scent of him, of soap, of young male, of the subtle hint of wolf under it all. "As do you."

He shifted on the porch looking ill at ease. Wary of her, but not for the reasons he should have been. His naivety made her want to pull him inside the house and do decadent things to him. She ran the tip of her tongue across her teeth instead, raking him with her gaze until he drew in a breath and shifted uncomfortably, nervously gesturing back towards the street and a car considerably less shiny and new than the one she had taken from the Man's sister.

"So, I've got my mom's car tonight . . ."

# # #

Stiles had spent half the day Saturday shooting down Scott's proffered excuses on why he ought to bail on Troy Fischer's party. And Stiles was annoyingly good at talking his way around what Scott considered to be sound logic.

For instance, he didn't feel up to dealing with a party, when sometimes even the crowded hall at school sort of had him on edge ever since since Dupont. His pulse would start pounding, and the claws did sort of want to pop out occasionally when he'd get jostled unexpectedly by some kid in the hall, but he'd been dealing with it.

"Well, you've got to get over that. And maybe a little aversion therapy is just what you need. You know, confront it head on in the company of a gorgeous girl."

"Well, maybe I'm not looking to start dating again."

"Jesus, nobody's asking you to propose. It's not even a date. It's a party."

"I thought you hated Troy Fischer. Why are you so hot on me going to this thing?"

"I do. So, so much. But _I'm_ not going. We're talking you. And you need a distraction. And Zlata's a distraction, even if its just you trying to come up with reasons why the super hot transfer student isn't your type."

It was guilt that finally sealed the deal. _She doesn't know anybody. She's all alone in a foreign country. Man up and go to the party with her, because if she goes by herself, those douchebags are gonna be all over her_ _and you don't want that on your conscience, do you_?

Which was how he ended up on Mr. Klutsky's doorstep, trying not to gape at his niece. Because wow.

"Those are really nice - - shoes. They look like weapons." Was the brilliant thing that came out of his mouth as they were walking towards his mom's car. He rolled his eyes at himself for the descent into idiocy, but she smiled and pointed a toe adorned with a strappy, really high-heeled torture device and shrugged.

"I think maybe, yes. Like learning to walk again, the first time I put them on. But they make legs look good, no?"

"No. I mean, yes. Really good. Um - -" he shut his mouth, feeling the fool, and opened the passenger side door for her. She slid her hand across his arm, a casual touch as she got in. It shot tingles from hand to groin. A weird sort of shiver that was part awareness of the utter sex she was exuding, part a curling little sliver of wariness that he couldn't quite put a finger on the root of.

The party was on the east side of town, where the filthy rich residents of Beacon Hills flocked together to lord it over the rest of them. There were a lot of cars parked on the street down the long drive, and a lot more up the hill where the house was. He parked on the street, under a big oak and they walked up the drive to the house.

"This is a very nice house," Zlata remarked, staring at the sprawling arms of the grey stone estate.

"Yeah, Troy's dad is some sort of software guru or something."

"Software?"

"You know, computer stuff."

"Ah," she nodded, following him up onto the broad stoop. The sound of music reverberated from inside the house. He didn't even get the chance to knock on the door before it opened and a pair of giggling teenagers stumbled out, a very obviously drunken girl, pulling a grinning guy by the hand. He glanced back at Zlata and shrugged, holding out a hand and inviting her inside ahead of him.

Inside there were a lot of bodies, a lot of overheated kids mingling, leaning against walls, sprawling on furniture. The scents were overwhelming, alcohol, sweat, perfumes, deodorants, pheromones mixed with so much more. Almost sensory overload and he had to focus on blocking it out. A year ago, it would have had him reeling, but he'd gotten good at pushing the wolf to the shadows, at dampening the utter clarity of hearing and scent.

Stiles had been right, the sound system was absolutely killer, but it was too loud, and it seemed to reverberate up through the floor. Zlata caught his hand and moved into the house, sliding past bodies with envious ease. People were aware of her, eyes following her, male and female.

"Zlata. God, you look hot as hell." Troy Fischer appeared out of the mix, grinning, eyes fixed on her, ignoring Scott completely. He caught her arm, disengaging her from Scott, and led her deeper into the house. "This is the spill over. The real fun's downstairs. Bar's down there and the game room and dancing."

"Dancing I like."

"Yeah, me too. C'mon. I'll show you."

She glanced back at Scott, holding out the hand that Troy hadn't latched onto. "Come. We see this dancing."

"Umm, I'm not really much for dancing,"

She just smiled, and Troy glanced around at him, frowning a little at her refusal to abandon Scott for him. "What the matter, McCall, afraid you'll embarrass yourself?"

He ground his teeth a little, not rising to that bait, and let Zlata catch hold of his fingers and pull him along in her wake. Down to a basement that maybe could have held his entire house. Both floors. It was like the ultimate man cave, with a huge open bar, and one portion of the vast open space dedicated to a pool table and six or eight arcade games, another nook dedicated to a massive flat screen TV and a circle of plush sofas, and then a lot of open floor space where it looked like half the school was gathered. But he only recognized a few of the faces here and a lot of the people looked more college age than high school.

Zlata looked delighted. Troy was saying something to her about getting something from the bar. Scott felt like the room was closing in on him the moment he stepped into the crowd. Too many people, too much sound and he had no desire whatsoever to wade towards the crowd of kids undulating out there.

He thought he saw Danny through the crowd, and maybe the back of Ethan's head, but the crowd shifted and he wasn't sure. Someone staggered into him, and put hands on him, trying to catch their balance and he started, pulse surging unexpectedly, panic rising for an instant, before he clamped it down.

Someone stuck a cup in his hand and he realized it was Zlata. She held one of her own, filled with clear liquid. She tossed it back and grinned at him, amber eyes sparkling.

"What is it?" It didn't have much of an odor.

"Vodka," she said, urging the hand holding the cup up. "Best to take it, one big swallow."

He looked at it dubiously. His experience with booze was limited to beer and the occasional bottle of Jack that Stiles liberated from his dad's liquor cabinet. He'd used to be able to get a decent buzz, but not much anymore. At least not without guzzling alcohol like Kool-aid.

Honestly a little buzz wouldn't be a bad thing to help get through the night, so he bit the bullet and threw it back. It tasted faintly of rubbing alcohol and he wrinkled his nose, until the burn started at the back of his throat and seared its way outwards.

"That's - - not that good," he admitted and she laughed.

"It keeps you warm when it is cold outside. But maybe you don't like it straight, huh?"

"It just caught me off guard."

She relieved him of the cup, then leaned in and said close to his ear. "We make it sweet for you, then it'll go down like honey on the tongue."

"I'm good, really," he started, but she was already heading for the bar with both their empty cups in hand. He shut his eyes, wondering how pissed she'd be if he just slipped out and left her to the music and the crowd and the head clogging array of scents. He was okay with crowds normally, but tonight, there were too many people with no sense of personal space and he was afraid that maybe, just maybe he might lose that hold on control he was trying to maintain. He wished Stiles was here. Stiles was good at keeping him grounded. At being a shield for him when he needed one, and he sort of felt like he needed one right now. And Stiles owed him.

Aversion therapy his ass.

A girl he didn't know leaned into him, smelling of beer and expensive perfume. She looked a few years older than he was. She had on a sheer black top that showed off the lacy black bra under it.

"You wanna dance?"

Zlata came up while he was fumbling for an answer, eyes on the girl, a smile on her lips that showed just a hint of white teeth. It wasn't directed at him. He only caught the edge of it, and he still shuddered. The girl stammered something and backed off.

"You said you did not dance," Zlata shrugged, and put a cup back in his hand. This time it was tainted pink and smelled of cranberries.

"Yeah," he said. "Not so much."

He tossed the drink back. Two gulps and this time it didn't taste half bad. The burn was duller and felt good. She grinned at him, approving, and handed him her mostly full cup, as she glanced at the mass of moving bodies across the floor.

"Maybe I go, though."

"Definitely. Enjoy yourself." She waded into the crowd and immediately had two or three guys vying to grind up against her. She didn't seem to mind, and Stile's whole 'poor little girl out of her depths in a strange place' argument just didn't seem to hold water. She sort of looked like she was in the process of owning the place.

Somebody shrieked in laughter close to his ear and he flinched, blowing out a breath and emptying Zlata's cup. The dulling warmth of the alcohol was a good thing and vodka apparently held a little more kick for him than whiskey or beer. It made the music not so loud, the smells not so overwhelming. Somebody put their arm around his shoulders, and it felt distant enough that he was okay with it. He blinked at Troy, who was smirking at him, jerking his head towards the dancers where Zlata was undulating with the throb of the music.

"You brought her here, right?" Troy weeded through the people mulling around the edges of the dancers, pulling Scott with him.

"Yeah?"

"You guys dating?"

That was weirdly funny. Scott laughed, shaking his head. "No. She's just - -" he didn't know what she was. Not a friend - - barely an acquaintance. More like a storm that had blown in and disrupted his peace of mind more than it was already disrupted. "Just a girl. She lives down the street from me. She's from Poland."

He wasn't quite sure why he was sharing pertinent details with Troy Fischer. It was like he'd caught Stiles' condition of non-existent filters between head and tongue. Or maybe it was the mellow warmth of the vodka that had spread up from his gut to his head.

"So you and her doing it?"

"No," he shrugged out from under Troy's arm, offended.

Troy held up his hands, smirking. "Just wanted to know if she was fair game, is all."

"She's not game. She's a girl."

"And girls like nice things. I've got nice things." Troy tossed him one more condescending smile, before heading towards the snarl of kids dancing.

"Dick," Scott muttered.

Somebody laughed next to him, and he glanced over at Danny, who was drawing a beer from the keg at the end of the bar. Danny shrugged a what can you do shrug. "Yeah. But he's got good booze."

He grinned, before wondering off, maybe to find Ethan. Good booze was a stellar idea. If he needed to wake Stiles up in the middle of the night to come drive them home, well, he could live with that.

He wondered over to the game room with another of those vodka cranberry mixes she'd made for him. He watched a game of pool, until a space cleared in front of a classic arcade pinball machine, and he tried his hand at that. He sort of sucked at it, his reflexes lagging a beat or two behind his brain. But that was okay, because the game wasn't judging him for it and truth be told, he was starting to feel pretty good, in a numb, wrapped in cellophane sort of way.

A body leaned against his side, hand on his back and he didn't even start, just looked over at Zlata. In her heels she was pretty much eye level with him and her eyes held this low-banked glimmer that was sort of distracting. And pretty. Her eyes were the color of raw honey, and he hadn't really noticed before. She smelled faintly of sweat, and perfume that wasn't hers, and some other subtle scent that part of him found vaguely familiar, but he couldn't quite place.

"Hey," he smiled at her.

She caught him by the hand, drawing him away from the game room, towards the shadows where people lurked around the edges.

"You having a good time?"

"Good time. Yes." She agreed. "But I get tired of dancing with them, when I rather dance with you."

He blinked at her, trying to process that. At this point, he was feeling good enough that he wasn't entirely sure why he'd been reluctant to go out and dance with her in the first place. He was willing to give it a go. It was a party after all.

"Yeah, okay - -"

She pushed him back, and his balance had evaporated enough that he staggered a step, shoulders hitting the wall. She followed him, pressing full body against him, the scent of her sharp and heady and going right to his head.

"I don't want to dance, anymore," she whispered, warm, wet mouth close to his ear, before it slid down, attaching to the pulse below his jaw. And just - - fuck - - one half of his half of his brain was trying to convince the other half that making out with a girl he only barely knew, against a wall in Troy Fischer's basement was such a bad idea, until she slid her knee between his legs and rubbed her thigh against the beginnings of an erection he hadn't even realized had been brewing. It was hard to try and reason his way out of that, when the completely unreasonable portions of his body were screaming 'hell yes'.

It felt so good it made his head reel and the wall at his back was likely the only thing keeping him on his feet. It occurred to him, in one last desperate reach for reason, that if she'd had half the alcohol he had, she was drunk, and maybe making out drunk was the sort of thing they'd both regret later. Which was around the time she curled her fists in his jacket and pulled him to the side, shoving him down onto the end of one of the couches along the wall. He just went with it, everything spinning a little out of his control. He sprawled and she straddled him, warm weight on his lap, grinding her ass against the hard on straining against the fly of his jeans, catching his head and plunging right into an open mouthed, all tongues on board kiss. And then he figured, with the last vestiges of anything resembling common sense, that maybe out of the two of them, she wasn't the one drunk off her ass and holy hell, vodka carried a mean punch. And God, _her hands_.

He arched off the couch as her fingers slid up under his shirt, bright points of light flaring behind his eyes as nails raked his skin. It would have been painful - -maybe it was painful - - but it was hard to differentiate when she was grinding in his lap. Heat was everywhere, it poured off her in waves he could smell. She bit his lip, and he could taste blood and it hardly mattered, because one of her hands was working at the button of his jeans and everything else was just a dull buzz of inconsequential background noise compared to that.

Then, bafflingly, she was gone, her hands, her weight, her scent still strong in his nostrils. Which was when things got confusing. Isaac was standing there, glowering, a phone in his hand, ignoring some guy who was trying to snatch it away. And Zlata was half off the couch, next to him, narrow eyed and glaring herself, flushed lips pulled back into something that almost looked like a snarl, but it wasn't directed at him.

Isaac did something to the phone before tossing it at the guy, who scrambled after it.

"Are you out of your mind?" Isaac reached down and grabbed his elbow, hauling him up. He might have taken offense, but he was too busy trying to keep his balance.

"What are you - -?"

"Keeping you from going on YouTube."

Scott was feeling really, really slow on the uptake. "What?"

"C'mon," Isaac was pulling him across the room, through the crowd towards the stairs. He glanced back, looking for Zlata, but she had disappeared.

"How wasted are you?" Isaac was asking.

Pretty thoroughly, though he didn't say it. What he asked, was, "Is Allison here?" Because Isaac wasn't really the seek out the company of tons of people he didn't know for the fun of it sort of guy.

"No."

"Oh. How'd you get here?"

Isaac didn't answer that. And then they were outside, where it was dark and cool, and away from the heat of that basement and the noise and the smells, the night offered a miraculous void of sensation.

"What are we doing?"

"Going home," Isaac said. "Where are your keys?"

It took him a second to get that, disjointed as his thinking presently was. He systematically went about checking pockets, until he managed to find them in his jacket. Then another pertinent fact worked it way into his jumbled stream of thought.

"Wait - - Zlata. I was her ride - -"

Isaac snorted. "I could see that."

"I can't just leave her - -"

"Sure you can. There's like twenty guys that'll slit each other's throats for the chance to drive her home. She'll be fine."

Weirdly enough, that scenario didn't particularly bother him. He leaned against the car while Isaac opened the passenger door and said with sort of a hushed amazement. "We were totally doing it."

"You were headed that way," Isaac agreed. "In the middle of about a hundred people."

That sank in in stages, until it finally hit him that - - oh crap - - they had seriously been going at it - - and he felt another surge of amazement at that concept, because how had that even happened? - - in the midst of a crowded basement.

He got in when Isaac urged him, sinking into the passenger seat, warm and lightheaded. He leaned his head back, pressing his palms against his eyes. It didn't alleviate his swimming head or the slow swell of embarrassment creeping up.

"Vodka is either really, really good. Or really, really bad."

Isaac sniffed and started the car.

"There's blood on your shirt."

Sure enough, there were a couple of stains, long streaks of it soaked through the material of his Henley. He blinked in confusion and lifted the shirt. There was a little blood on his stomach, still moist, but there was only whole skin, no sign of the wounds that had shed it. He half recalled the feel of her nails, but he didn't think she'd raked him hard enough to make him bleed. But then pretty much everything he'd been feeling had taken second seat to the feel of her grinding in his lap.

His brain finally caught up with something Isaac had said right around the time he'd maybe pulled Zlata off of him, when he'd had that guy's phone. "Somebody was video taping us?"

"The guy sitting right there next to you while she was giving you the lap dance."

"Oh, God - -"

He groaned and sank deeper into the seat. Maybe if he were lucky, tomorrow when he woke up, he wouldn't remember half of this.


	7. Chapter 7

7

She watched the wolves disappear amongst the crowd of prey and she seethed. It was all she could do to keep the beast from surging forth and ripping into them in a blood drenched frenzy of enraged frustration.

The other wolf had just earned a painful death and she'd laugh while she ripped out his entrails and showed them to him. Then she'd take them perhaps and decorate her wolf's yard, like some sort of grisly garland for him to find. A punishment for the both of them for thwarting her pleasures.

She lifted her hand to her mouth and sucked off the blood under her nails, one by one, the flavor of the wolf vibrant on her tongue. His mouth had tasted like vodka and wolf and male and his body had been hard and responsive under her. She still felt the heat of arousal between her legs. For sex and blood.

"That's harsh, baby." The prey whose house this way came to stand close behind her, reeking of alcohol and cologne. "The guy you're with ditching you for another guy. I always knew there was something off about McCall."

She glanced up at him, nails itching to elongate. He was tall and young with a square, pleasing face. The scent of his blood, just beneath of the layer of his skin made her run the tip of her tongue across her teeth.

"Believe me, it'd take a global disaster to pull me away from you in the middle of getting it on." His hand grazed the small of her back. "McCall's a fucking moron."

She slid her hand down his arm, folding her fingers around his hand and looked up into his eyes with the half lidded gaze she knew men responded well to. "But you, you're not moron?"

"Hell no," he affirmed with the breathless anticipation of a man who was surprised to discover that his crass attempt at seduction had succeeded.

She smiled, and pulled him through the crowd, towards the stairs.

"We can go to my room, upstairs - -" he suggested, happily following in her wake.

"Outside. We go outside."

"Outside?" he complained. "You wanna do it outside? Its cold."

She glanced back at him with a raised brow. "You afraid you can't get it up with cool air against your skin? I help with that. I make it warm for you."

He gaped at her, nodding. He led her through the back, out sprawling glass doors to a huge lawn, and beyond that, down a sloping expanse of grass and hedges, there were trees. The edge of a wood. The smell of pine and decaying mulch. She laughed, releasing his hand, and heading towards it, trusting he would follow her to hell at the behest of the flesh between his legs. She could already smell the scent of his arousal.

She moved into the trees, with their shadowed privacy and he followed, calling her name. In the darkness she let her claws creep out, felt the shift of bone and sinew as her very bones shifted. The first few times it had been disconcerting, almost painful, but now, the way her body realigned itself as she let some of the beast back out, was exhilarating. Almost a precursor to sex itself.

She led him deeper into the woods and when they were far enough out that no one might hear his screams, she turned and showed him exactly what it was that he had followed into the night.

# # #

Allison whispered into his ear, words that meant nothing, just hot breath against his skin, the tease of teeth against his lobe. Her hair was this dark curtain of silk that tickled his face, the movement of her hips as she ground her ass against his erection this unbearable, explosive drive that built and built and built without fruition. The blood on her nails when she drew them down his skin was new though. Allison wasn't shy about using her nails, but she never drew blood. And it felt like it was rolling down his skin in rivulets. Like she'd torn him open.

And her voice, when she said his name sounded just a little cross. More cross the louder it got, and less like Allison and more like him mom. Which was startling and disturbing, because his mom had no place at all in this scenario.

He blinked sluggishly, groaning at the sunlight shining in from blinds that should have been safely pulled. His mom crouched at the side of his bed, disconcertingly eye to eye and lifted one disapproving brow. If he hadn't been lying on his stomach, the Allison inspired morning wood safely trapped between him and the mattress, she might have been more disapproving still. Still it was mortifying enough her just being here, while it was taking its own sweet time deflating.

"I can only hope, that the one thing your miraculous, supernatural ability to repair bodily injury doesn't cover, is the head splitting hangover you so richly deserve." She smiled at him, one of those tight, annoyed smiles she used when she was trying to avoid yelling at him.

It took him a moment or two of profound disorientation before the jumbled memories of the night before started to file back into waking memory. Oh, yeah. Somebody had been gyrating on his lap last night, but it hadn't been Allison.

"Umm - -" he ran a hand through his hair, trying to access whether there was any residual pounding of the head, other than the rush of embarrassment. Other than the angle of the sun suggesting it was way to early to be up on a Sunday morning, there seemed to be no other lingering side effects. "No, I think I'm pretty good."

Her smile faltered and she stood. "Really? Really, Scott? You come home last night drunk enough that you actually can't walk the proverbial straight line and that's what you have to say to me?"

"I couldn't walk a straight line?" He honestly didn't recall being that wasted. But then the details of actually getting home were pretty indistinct. He still had on the clothes from last night, sans boots, but he had no memory of actually falling into bed.

She narrowed her eyes and he scrambled for a more apologetic tact.

"It sort of got away from me, mom." Things had settled down enough that he felt safe rolling over and scrubbing his hands across his face. "I didn't think it would hit me that hard - - I mean beer and whiskey don't do anything for me - -"

He trailed off, as her expression darkened, realizing he was digging himself in deeper rather than out of the hole.

"Right, so you decided to move right on to vodka? Being an old hand at hard liquor at seventeen?"

"Umm - -" he had to wonder what Isaac had told her. Because, God, things were a little blurry in his memory, but what he did recall he was pretty sure he didn't need his mom in on the details of. Because there'd been sex - - almost sex - - involved in a public place and holy crap, what had he been thinking?

"I could smell it on you," she clarified, as if she knew exactly what had been going through his mind. " Isaac didn't spill, in case you were wondering. I get the feeling he'd take your secrets to the grave. You were lucky he was there to drive you home."

"Oh."

"I thought you were more responsible than this."

That hurt. Especially when her eyes softened and the irritation drained from her face, replaced by a sort of weary resignation. "Didn't you go there with a girl? Do you even know how she got home?"

"Umm - - I don't think she was as messed up as I was - - I'll check on her." Though honestly, the idea of knocking on Zlata's door this morning and looking her in the eye made him cringe. He really, really hadn't meant to go where he ended up going last night.

She stared at him for a moment, before sighing and admitting wryly. "Maybe its genetic. Vodka has a tendency to kick my ass, too. I never got to wriggle out of the hangover part of the experience, though. I expect better of you, honey."

Which was how she left it. A disappointed frown and a little censure that hit him right in the gut and he'd almost rather she yelled and threatened a grounding.

He sat on the edge of the bed once she'd left and tried to gather scattered memory, that he had the feeling wasn't going to sort itself out anytime soon. He swallowed and listened to the sounds of his mother in her bedroom, but there were no sounds of Isaac in the house. He was probably at work, Sunday being a popular day for funerals. He still had his job at the cemetery, part time, experienced gravediggers in short supply in a town where the mortality rate was disturbingly high.

So there would be no enlightening information from him for a while.

He took a breath, deciding that if he wanted to clear his head, the best way to start was with a shower. So he shed the clothing he'd slept in, stepped under hot water and got rid of the lingering stench of alcohol and cologne and the myriad other smells that clung to him from the party last night. God, his mom had been able to smell the stink and she was working with nothing more than human senses.

He stayed there for a while, head bent under the spray of water, letting the heat work its way into his skin. Concentrating on nothing but the feel of it, the sound of it, was calming. When he got out, shook the water from his hair, wrapped a towel around his hips and went back into the bedroom, Stiles was sitting at the head of his bed, playing with his phone.

"Dude, what were you doing, taking a bubble bath? You were in there forever?"

Scott decided against suggesting Stiles perform some impossible sexual act upon himself, and opted for. "Its before nine on a Sunday morning. Why are you here?"

Stiles ability to pull off a devastating scoff was unparalleled. He did so with a sniff and a raised brow before closing out whatever he was doing with his phone and saying. "Are you serious? The fact that you weren't considerate enough to give me a running commentary of what happened last night is bad enough, but you didn't even have the common courtesy to call when you got home? I need information. Spill."

Anyone else might have assumed that statement laced with a good deal of wry sarcasm. Scott knew Stiles well enough to know dead seriousness when he heard it. Stiles need to know didn't just border on the line of obsessive, it went right over the edge. Holding out on him while he was practically twitching was just cruel.

"Well, interesting fact. Vodka kicks my ass. I swear to God, three maybe four shots and I was messed up."

"Really?" Both Stiles brows went up. "Vodka? It tastes like something out of a first aid kit."

"I know, right. But if you mix it with fruit juice, it's not so bad."

"Noted. So, go on. What else?"

"Well, it wasn't that great a party. I didn't know most of the people there." He hedged. He would tell Stiles eventually, because he always ended up telling Stiles eventually, he was just having a hard time getting it out, half of it hazy and unclear in his own head.

"Yeah, well, you and Fischer don't exactly run with the same crowd. Bunch of Ivy League dicks and over privileged assholes. Why do you think I didn't crash?"

"Yeah, then why did you push me into going?"

"You know exactly why I pushed you to go?"

Scott chewed on the inside of his cheek and muttered. "Yeah, well about that - - I also sorta made out - - a lot."

Stiles blinked at him, momentarily bereft of instantaneous reply. Then, "With a girl? Who?"

"Who do you think?"

"Zlata? Oh my God, you made out with Zlata? Score." Stiles proffered a palm for a congratulatory high five. Scott sighed and ignored it.

"Dude, I was drunk off my ass. And I barely know her. And it was like right there, in the middle of the party - - in front of people."

"You sound like the key note speaker for the California chapter of Abstinence Now. Dude, you're a dude, you were having sex pretty much non-stop until Allison dumped your ass - - and then for like eight months its just been you and a five fingered date - -" Stiles wiggled his own fingers for reference and Scott glowered. "When a super hot chick wants to jump your bones - - the big head stops thinking and the little head takes over. That's just biology."

"She didn't dump me."

"Dude, she so did. And it's okay. You get to know Zlata. Another couple of days and you're in love and you're screwing like bunnies. Until some relative of hers with a gun, figures out you're a monster and threatens to end it the permanent way. And it's just like old times."

"You know, sometimes I hate you."

"No you don't. You love me all the time. I'm your one constant. So give me details."

"I'm not giving you details," Scott grabbed a pair of boxers and jeans and headed back to the bathroom to put them on. "Isaac hauled me out of there before I could do something really stupid anyway."

"Isaac? What was Isaac doing there?"

Scott came back out, shrugging. He found a shirt across the back of the chair and pulled it on. "I dunno. But I'm kinda glad he was. Some guy was filming us on his phone."

Stiles eyes got round and he grabbed for his own phone.

"Isaac deleted it before he could upload it," Scott told him dryly.

"Well damn, Isaac was actually on the ball," Stiles said, tossing the phone back down and eyeing Scott. "Dude, you've got a hot girl that's totally into you."

Scott flopped down on the edge of the bed, not so sure how he felt about that. Sure, Zlata was gorgeous, but there was just something about her that made the hairs on the back of his arms stand up sometimes. Something that put him a little on edge.

"What?" Stiles gave him a look, catching on to his lack of enthusiasm at the prospect.

"I dunno. Just - - she makes me sorta nervous? Just a little."

Stiles sucked on the inside of his cheek for a moment, turning that over. Finally, he said. "If I were going to psychoanalyze you - -"

"Oh, please, please don't."

"I'd say you were either still stuck up on Allison - -"

"I'm not."

"Or that Allison messed you up enough that you've got self-esteem issues going on and the idea of a hot girl wanting you is freaking you out - -"

"There's no self-esteem issues."

"Or your wolf senses are picking up that this girl is trouble in high heels and maybe don't discount basic instinct just because I think at least one of us needs to get laid between now and graduation."

Scott stared at him not expecting that, and Stiles shrugged, a vaguely apologetic look on his face. "Hey, I can admit to being occasionally pushy."

"I need to check and make sure she got home all right," Scott sighed. "I sort of cut out and left her there last night."

Stiles did a little hand roll, not looking particularly concerned. "Whatever. I was thinking of going downtown today. You coming?"

"What for?"

"I dunno. It's Sunday, nobody's trying to kill us or eat us or do anything remotely life or sanity threatening - - I thought maybe just screw around - - catch a movie - - whatever. I'll even go and knock on Zlata's door for you if you're too much of a wuss to check on her."

Scott rolled his eyes, though Stiles wasn't entirely far from the truth. It sounded like as good a plan as any though. He even managed to get out of the house without much more than a frown from his mom. The fact that he'd stumbled home drunk last night and gotten away with nothing more than a stern talking to was pretty amazing.

"She was seventeen, once," Stiles reminded him when he remarked on it. "I bet you money she was a wild child."

"I don't want to think about it."

Stiles snickered and got into the Jeep. They drove the few doors down to Zlata's uncle's house and sat there, engine idling while Scott got up the nerve to get out and go knock on her door. If he'd had the common sense to get her phone number, he could have just called.

Stiles phone rang while he was gathering resolve. The Caller Id identified it as his dad.

"Hey dad. What's up?"

Scott tuned that out, taking a breath and opening the door. Might as well get it over it. How pissed could she be, really? Maybe it was all a hazy memory for her this morning as well. Maybe she was embarrassed as he was. Stiles put a hand on his arm as he was getting out, and he glanced back at him, freezing at the look on his face.

Whatever his dad was telling him wasn't good. Scott focused his hearing, picking up the Sheriff's voice on the other end of the line. " - - found it this morning when he was out walking his dog. Looks like it happened last night. Another 'animal attack'. I'd lay odds on it being the same '_animal'_ that ripped up those bodies in the barn, by the look of it.

Scott shut his eyes, the faintest sensation of vertigo sweeping up on him from the edges. He dropped his head, breathing deep, trying to stave it off. He lost a little track of what the sheriff said next and only picked up the line of conversation when Stiles looked at him and said.

"Yeah, he's with me. Yeah, we can head over."

Stiles hung up and blew out a breath of his own. "You heard that?"

"Some of it."

"Some guy found a body out in the woods this morning when he was out walking his dog. A pretty ripped up body. He wants you to see if you pick up anything around the crime scene."

"Okay." Scott nodded and pulled the door shut. He felt a spreading sensation of numb.

"He says the body is torn up like the ones at the barn."

"I heard."

"Which means that thing's still around here."

"Yeah, I got that."

Stiles opened his mouth, on the verge of something else spewing out, then he shut it down, looking back at the road, knuckles tight on the wheel.

"If it is it, the Vanago," Stiles finally said. "Its been laying low for a week now. No killing sprees, no bodies popping up - - nobody reporting slaughtered livestock. How's nobody not noticed it?"

"I don't know."

"I mean, is it a mindless killing machine or is it smart enough to bide its time and pick and choose its kills?"

Scott finally turned to look at him, a chill piercing the layer of numb. He remembered its eyes, staring at him through the bars of the cages. He remembered so very, very vividly the press of its teeth against his throat - - and the fact that it had chosen not to rip it out, when it had been tearing apart everyone else without hesitation. Because it had been playing with him. It had been a game. And he'd seen that in its eyes too, that glint of almost amusement in the midst of the killing rage. It was the first time he'd allowed himself to think about it when his head wasn't clouded with shock and pain.

"When it was after us in the woods up north," he said slowly. "There was nothing but animal instinct to hunt and kill. It was different here. There was something - - _something_ behind its eyes."

Stiles took his eyes off the road to stare at Scott. "What do you mean? Intelligence?"

"Maybe. A different kind of focus than just hunt and kill. It was playing with me. If it had wanted me dead, I'd be dead - - and it wanted me to know that - - I think."

"And this is the first time you think to mention this?"

"I was trying not to think about it."

Stiles digested that for a minute before admitting. "Well that's just disturbing."

"Highly," he agreed.

"Playing with you how? Cat/mouse sort of play? That's the feeling I got when it was batting me around."

Scott glanced at him, frowning. It hadn't been casually toying with him in preparation of a kill. It had been more an alpha taking down an unruly beta who dared offer a challenge. It had been a power play and it had taken him down and showed him who had the longer teeth and the sharper claws.

"No," he finally said. "It was putting me in my place. I'm not prey. I'm another predator and it was making sure I knew who was who in the hierarchy of things."

"Yeah, that's fantastic," Stiles said dryly. "Just stellar. So I'm prey? Me and pretty much anyone else who can't spout fangs and claws?"

Up ahead there were the flashing lights of a gathering of police vehicles off the side of the road at the edge of a bridge spanning a stream gully. Wood bordered the road, one of the big spans of parkland that speckled Beacon Hills. Stiles pulled off behind the last car in the line and they got out, hesitating by the Jeep as a few deputies trudged up the slope, proceeding the men from the medical examiners officer who were struggling with the burden of a body bag. There was a stretcher waiting at the side of the road and they deposited their load upon it, rolling it the rest of the way towards the open doors of the M.E. van.

The body bag sealed most of the scent away, but Scott picked up the faintest trace of decomposition. Stiles nudged him with an elbow and jerked his head towards Sheriff Stilinski who had appeared at the top of the incline. Stiles headed towards his father and Scott moved in his wake.

The Sheriff took them across the road to the incline that lead down the other side to the stream. The slope was slick with wet leaves from an early morning rain. It was a decent little channel where the bridge crossed the water. Maybe ten feet across, stream running smooth and clear until it came up upon a collection of limbs and bramble that had knotted up on the other side of the bridge.

"That's where the body was found," The sheriff pointed under the shadow of the bridge towards the bramble. "It got caught up in the debris. A dog sniffed it out. The ME figures it had been in the water for twelve to fourteen hours, so I'm doubting you can get anything off of it, Scott."

Other than the stench of death, he was probably right. And there was nothing but the smell of men and wet forest here.

"The body ended up here, but this isn't where the attack happened." The Sheriff said. "But I was hoping you might be able to help figure out where it might have been dumped into the water. I'm giving you a head start, before I send my guys out looking, to see what you can pick up."

"I can try. But with the rain this morning - - I might not have much luck. There's definitely nothing here."

He looked up stream, along the forested bank. The body would have come down stream from somewhere up there working its way down from who knew how far up.

"You're sure it's the same thing from the barn?" Stiles asked.

His dad shook his head, looking tired and marginally appalled. "Being in the water all night did a lot of damage, but the way that body was sliced up - - yeah, I'd say it was similar. Whatever did this - - there was a lot of rage."

"Do you know who it was? The victim?"

"Not yet. Young and male is all we have at the moment. Go. You don't have a lot of time before I have to send my guys out."

So they headed up stream, walking the bank.

"I could go faster if you stayed back with your dad," Scott suggested, but it wasn't Stiles slowing him down that was bothering him. It was the idea that that thing was still out there somewhere, lurking in the shadows and he didn't know how many more times his luck was going to hold if he had to fight it off again. If it took him down, then there would be nothing between it and Stiles.

"Are you kidding?" Stiles hopped over a root and used a couple of flat rocks to make his way along the stream bank.

Scott shrugged. "Just saying."

"You're worried it's out here and we're going to run into it," Stiles said, brandishing his unnerving ability to read Scott's mind. "It's the middle of the morning. The woods are crawling with cops. If its out here, its either long gone or its lying low."

"You don't know that."

"I'm optimistic."

But a mile or more down the path of the stream and still Scott had picked up nothing. And he was starting to think he wasn't going to. The woods thinned and there was a broad expanse of manicured green.

"Is this West Hills Country Club?"

"Yeah, I think it is." Stiles moved out from the tree line onto the green. The big white clubhouse could just be seen over the hill. It was a very exclusive club.

"Then Troy Fischer's house is right around here. Like practically within walking distance of the club."

"Yeah, it is." Stiles drew his brows, chewing that over, then met Scott's eyes, both of them coming to the very disturbing realization that if it was the vanago that was responsible for the body Stiles' dad had found, then it had made a kill within a very short distance of where Scott had been last night.

"You know I don't believe in coincidence, right?"

"Yeah," Scott said warily. "I've heard you mention it a time or two."

"Yeah, well, this is me repeating it. What are the chances of this thing just randomly deciding to attack somebody like literally on the doorstep of the house you were at last night?"

"I dunno. Anything's possible."

"Right, you go ahead and play devil's advocate and I'm gonna counter with - - what if its still tracking you? What if it's not just tracking you - - but like you said - - it's playing with you? Didn't Dupont say it was a relentless hunter? And you got away from it. Twice."

"So did you."

That made Stiles stop and swallow. "Yeah, but I'm just prey. You're the predator it was trying to make an impression on."


	8. Chapter 8

8

Another eighth of a mile following the stream bank and Scott latched onto to something. Just stopped in his tracks, head up, nostrils flaring slightly, that hazy look he got in his eyes when he was concentrating hard and shutting everything else out in the process. Stiles gave him a moment to pin down whatever it was that had caught his attention, before impatience got the best of him and he demanded.

"What? You smell something?"

"Maybe." He didn't give more details than that, just cut away from the stream. Stiles cast a wary look across the ground looking for visible clues instead of olfactory ones, but there was nothing but leaves and twigs and more leaves and twigs, so he followed in Scott's wake, tromping through wet leaves. His Converse were muddy and damp, the bottom of his jeans were, from trudging along the stream bank and through wet bramble for the last hour. It could have been worse. It could have been snow. And instead of trying to find a trace of a possible supernatural beast, the supernatural beast in question could have been actively hunting them down. So all in all - - the day could have been a lot more horrifying than it was turning out to be. He was still jumping at little things. Scott was jumping at little things. Like normal everyday woodsy sounds, the unexpected flutter of birds getting startled into flight, the creak of water logged wood and both of them would start and stare and have to take a breath to fight off nerves that had gone into high gear.

No matter how much he'd scoffed at Scott's suggestion he hang back with his dad while Scott tried to track down the scene of the crime by himself - - the idea of that thing actually being out here, lurking in the woods - - scared him shitless. He had nightmares about that thing. Vivid, wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat nightmares. He'd never known anybody that he thought deserved a grisly death as much as Julian Dupont, but still, the images of what the vanago had done to him, clung to his mind like some noxious stain that wouldn't go away. The only thing that scared him more was the notion of Scott facing it down by himself.

Scott stopped dead, and Stiles was distracted enough that he almost trod on his heels.

There wasn't anything special about the spot, just more of the same, but after a second, Scott seemed to spy something and he knelt down, brushing leaves aside, before he jerked his hand back and rose, taking a hasty step backwards. Stiles crowded forward, fearless in his curiosity since the likelihood of a giant beast being concealed under a layer of leaves was slim to none.

"What? What is - -" he started, then stopped, narrowing his eyes at the blob of organic debris Scott had uncovered. It took him a moment to register what it actually was. It was an ear. A bloody, ear with a flap of grisly scalp still attached.

"Holy - - fuck - -" He cast Scott a look. Scott was pale, breathing hard, but there was a glimmer of red in his eyes. Freaked out enough that the wolf peeked out of its own accord. He was turning, staring into the trees, hands clenching and unclenching, nails gone long and sharp in his unease.

"Its not - - are you sensing it around here?" Stiles stood up, swallowing, staring into the woods himself, wishing he had a fraction of Scott's enhances perceptions. Being blind to possible threats lurking in the shadows was just damned inconvenient.

No," Scott said after a moment. Then again, with a breath of released tension. "No. I can't smell it at all. All I'm getting is blood. And not much of that. The rain washed most everything away. But not all of it." He kicked a thick layer of leaves, inhaling.

"There's still traces here. This is where it happened."

"You sure? Other than the big clue of the severed ear lying about, I mean."

Scott nodded. Then he drew his brows, a little uncertainty crossing his face. Reluctantly he crouched by the ear again, before looking up at Stiles. "I think - -I think its Troy Fischer."

Stiles blinked down at him. "You're shitting me?"

Scott rose, swallowing, eyes filled with justifiable dread.

"How - -?" Stiles started, then stopped, turning in a circle as he stared at the woods. "It wasn't just lurking around your general vicinity last night - - it got close enough to snatch a guy from the actual house you were at? How is that even possible?"

"I don't know," Scott said softly.

"How's nobody _not_ notice a half ton frickin' monster bear roaming around the grounds?"

"I don't know. I can't remember half of what happened last night." Then he stopped, shaking his head, pacing a few steps and standing there, back to Stiles, this tenseness in the line of his shoulders that was almost palpable. "Is this my fault?"

He turned around and Stiles could see it in his eyes, the struggle to try and figure out a way to shoulder the blame for this. As if somehow he were responsible for the convoluted way a killing machine's mind worked, just because it had decided to fixate on him.

"Don't start. So help me God, if you try and take the fall for this, I will personally kick your ass. Just because this thing _might_ be after you, doesn't make you responsible for all the collateral damage it does along the way."

"It does if I ignored it because it was easier not to think about it."

Stiles hissed and shoved a palm against Scott's shoulder. "You didn't know. We were all hoping it had just run for the hills. You, me, that poor preppy douche bag that it tore up last night, we were the victims. You don't blame the victims. So we know now and we get proactive. That's the best we can do, right? Try and keep anybody else from getting killed."

Being proactive and saving lives was something Scott could get his head around. Something that could give him the focus that he needed. And he needed that focus because with him still reeling from the last life and death situation, this was so not the best time for him to jump right into another. Scott took a breath, struggling with that concept for a moment, before he blew it out and nodded, a look of determination in his eyes.

"You should probably call your dad."

"Are you sure about that?" Stiles wasn't so much himself. The further his dad's guys stayed away from this the better the odds that none of them would end up like Troy Fischer.

"I think," Scott sounded anything but. "Tell him at least. Let him decide what to do after."

Which was only common sense. Leaving his dad in the dark had never worked to anyone's benefit in the past, least of all his dad. "Yeah, okay. He's not the only one that needs a heads up."

So they made calls, him and Scott both. Scott covered up the ear to keep it from being easily found and dragged away by some forest critter in the mood for a little bloody snack. Then they started walking, following some invisible trail that only Scott could sense, or maybe it was just Scott moving aimlessly, making good guesses about the way hunter and prey might have come. He'd gone silent, not talking much in the face of all this fucked up crap. It didn't stop Stiles from babbling. Talking was his defense mechanism against the nerves that wanted to make his hands shake and his teeth chatter. He concocted scenarios and he tore them down, with only the occasional comment from Scott for the effort. By the time the woods thinned and they reached the back end of the properties that sat north of the country club he'd been going on for twenty minutes. They walked out onto somebody's lawn and stared up at the back of a big house. A lot of big houses on big lots. A lot of acreage around these estates.

"Do you remember which house is Fischer's?"

Scott shook his head, scenting the air and they moved along the boarder of woods and private yardage. He stopped a few houses down and stared up a vast sloping lawn towards a stone faced house. He canted his head, picking up God knew what.

"This is it."

"Really? You smell something?"

"No. A sheriff's car just pulled up front. Your dad."

"Shit. You can tell the difference between car sounds? I had a dog that could do that when I was little. Remember Ginger?" Scott gave him a narrow look, but Stiles ignored it, catching his arm and pulling him back towards the cover of woods. "He doesn't need to explain us here. God, I so wouldn't want to be in his shoes, telling Troy's parents their son got eaten by a giant bear."

They stood there for a while, under the cover of woods, until his dad and one of his deputies and a man that was maybe Troy's father came out through the big row of French doors at the back of the house.

"We should probably go."

"Yeah."

So they started back, weaving their way through the trees, putting distance between themselves and the house.

They kept away from the stream path this time, afraid they might run into the deputies his dad had warned would be combing the banks. He hoped Scott had an idea which way to head to get back to the road and the Jeep, because he'd stopped having a clue a while back.

"So one body in how many days - - like almost a week now? - - what the hell has it been doing all this time? Communing with nature? Eating bunnies? I mean the park service guys have been on the lookout, my dad has had his ear to the ground. How long ago did Argent give up hunting it? How come nobody's even seen a stay hair? Don't bears mark their territory? Like scratch trees and stuff? Or is that mountain lions?"

"Its bears."

The answer came out of the trees to the left. Stiles yelped, taking a startled step sideways into Scott, which would have been a lot more embarrassing if Scott hadn't grabbed his arm and flinched backwards himself.

Derek melted out of the woods like a bad tempered, stubbled wraith. "And maybe it heard all the chattering a mile off and went to ground."

"Oh my God. Could you maybe like call out a warning before you sneak up on a person who's hunting freakin' monsters in the woods." Stiles felt the distinct urge to clutch at his chest, his heart was pounding so urgently. "And how did you get out here so fast. Scott just called you like a half hour ago. What, do you like just skulk around the woods for shits and giggles?"

Derek's brows twitched down. "Why are you even here? If you did run into it, it would chew you up and spit you out before you even got the chance to annoy it to death."

"Screw you, too, Derek. I'll have you know I was instrumental in taking it down once. Tell him, Scott."

Scott shrugged and backed him up with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. "You had a really big gun at the time."

"I can get a gun again. I know people."

Scott looked skeptical at the notion, which was a little hurtful, since the last time they'd faced off against the thing Stiles having that gun had saved both their lives. It was just bad luck that he'd happened to shoot Scott a few times in the process.

"Yeah, you do that. Maybe it can feed it to you." Derek suggested offhandedly, like he'd given the subject all the consideration he was prepared to part with and was on to other things.

"You find anything?"

Scott said. "We found where it killed him."

"We found his freakin' ear," Stiles put in. "His ear! Sans body. Just hanging out under the leaves."

"I couldn't pick up a scent. Not even a trace of it," Scott admitted.

"It rained hard this morning. I'm not picking up anything either."

"How can something that big not leave a trace?" Stiles wanted to know.

"Even when it was right there in my face," Scott said slowly. "Its scent was - - subdued. Sort of. Not like a normal bear. Not like a normal anything."

"Yeah," Derek nodded. "When I was tracking it the first time - - it was hard to keep a lock on. But then, we've also got to figure that maybe stomping around in the woods looking for it might be the wrong tact to take. If this thing is tracking Scott - - we're looking in the wrong place."

"What's it gonna do, start loitering around the school? It's a fucking giant supernatural bear." Stiles sniffed, still annoyed at Derek's dismissal of his skills of self-preservation.

"Don't forget, there's a human deep down inside it. And it's that human part that's fixated. Animals don't hold grudges."

"Oh - - oh." Scott looked at Stiles with wide eyes. "The other night, when the power went out. Every dog in a five-block radius was loosing its mind. We thought it was a car that took down the power pole - - but what if it wasn't?"

"And nobody noticed the giant werebear lumbering around the neighborhood?" Stiles was starting to feel that nauseous feeling in the pit of his gut. A mindless beast was one thing - - a mindless beast they could outthink and out maneuver. But something smart enough to hide its presence in the middle of a suburban neighborhood - - something that had tracked Scott down to his very doorstep - - that had managed to follow him to a damned party across town and make its mark - - that was a different sort of challenge all together. That was something with an agenda. And if animals didn't carry grudges they sure as hell didn't have agendas.

"The dogs noticed," Scott said, looking more than spooked, looking scared. He looked past Stiles to Derek. "It knows where I live, but I'm not the only one who lives there. My mom - - my mom's home alone."

"Dude, its not gonna attack anybody in the middle of town in broad daylight. Right?" Stiles cast his own look at Derek for confirmation.

Derek shrugged. "It seems unlikely. But this thing is all over the place. Who knows."

Stiles narrowed his eyes at that lack of help.

Scott dug his phone out of his pocket, dialing home. Freaked out. That much was clear by the look in his eyes, by the way he was breathing. On the edge the way he'd been on the edge since Dupont.

"She's not answering. Why's she not answering?" Scott hit the number again, and started moving. Stiles looked at Derek, who frowned, and they both started after Scott.

"Maybe she's in the middle of something. Maybe she's outside." Stiles offered as he hurried to pace Scott.

Scott cast him a worried look, fingers clenching on his cell. "It was at my _house_."

Which was a damned good reason, Stiles had to admit, to freak the fuck out. But Scott had gotten really good over the last year and half of dealing with supernatural craziness, at holding his shit together even under the weirdest of circumstances. It was the whole thing with Dupont that had reset his trigger. That had him going off at shadow threats to the things he cared about. That had him breaking into a loping run in his desperation to get back to the road because of the far-fetched notion that this thing had taken to lurking around daytime suburbia.

Stiles swore and picked up his own pace to keep up, breathlessly trying to talk Scott down off the precipice of fear he was working himself towards. "There's no way I'm believing this thing is out roaming the suburbs middle of the day. My dad gets fifty calls every time somebody sees a coyote in their backyard."

He lost track of where Derek was, which was just par for the course. When it came down to people skills and people problems, Derek was sorely lacking.

He tripped on a root and stumbled, catching himself on a tree, skinning his palm in the process. He leaned there and glared, yelling at Scott's back. "Unless you're planning on running all the way home, you're not getting very far without me and my keys."

Which was around the time Derek came out of the woods up ahead, cutting right across Scott's path, catching hold of Scott's arm and swinging him around. Scott growled, shaking him off. Stiles was fifty yards back and he heard that, he saw the glint of red in Scott's eyes.

"Breathe," Derek snapped at him, getting right up in his face, shoving him backwards, against a tree, fists tangled in the lapels of Scott's jacket. "Breathe and _think_, Scott."

"Get off me," Scott shoved at him, claws out and Derek grunted, holes in his t-shirt. His eyes went blue and his teeth popped. There was the faint sound of ripping denim as he jerked Scott forward by the jacket and slammed him back against the bole of the tree.

"Leave him alone." Stiles dared life and limb by putting hand on Derek's shoulder, wanting him to back the hell up from Scott when Scott looked like he was teetering at the edge of losing it altogether. Like the look he'd had on his face when he'd gone off on Aiden at School. Just instinct and adrenalin without a whole hell of a lot of rational thought to back it up.

Derek ignored him. Leaning forward and growling into Scott's face.

"You gonna leave him to stumble around in the woods where this thing just made a kill, because the panic and fear give you tunnel vision? Because it feels like you can't get enough air to breath without the red crowding in around the edges? Because all you can see and scent and hear is the threat?"

"I don't stumble around in the woods," Stiles muttered.

Derek didn't spare him a glance, staring unflinchingly at Scott, whose eyes were fading from red to brown. Scott broke the stare, glancing at Stiles, breath coming harsh and fast.

"You lose your grip on control, you're no good to anybody," Derek growled at him. "You find a place to put that panic and that fear and whatever it is you can't shake from your head, and you clamp it down, understand? _We_ don't have the luxury of letting it rule us."

Stiles stood there, staring between the two of them, thinking that it was more than just supposition on Derek's part that let him know what Scott was dealing with.

Scott shut his eyes, taking that deep breath Derek had suggested, hands dropping from Derek's chest, nails still halfway to claws. "How do I do that, when it comes up so fast - - I don't even see it coming?"

Derek looked down at the three claw made holes in the shoulder of his shirt, the faint stains of blood from wounds that had already healed, then back up to Scott. "You just do."

# # #

For a breathless, endless moment there, all he'd been able to see was the carnage left in the wake of the beast, the damage done to the vulnerable flesh of its prey - - and all he'd been able to think about was what it would do to his mom.

And Derek had been right. He couldn't breath for it. He couldn't see what was right in front of him for the red tinged memories and the redder tainted what might have been's swimming in his head. He'd _smelled_ the blood. He'd tasted it. And that's all he had seen.

His heart still pounded, but he could think.

He looked at Stiles. "Why isn't she answering the phone?"

"I don't know," Stiles put a hand on his shoulder, and jerked his chin in the general direction of the road. "Lets go ask her."

It was a more rational trip back through the woods towards the road and the Jeep then. Derek split off from them before they reached the sound and the smell of all the sheriff's men around the area where the body had been found. He said he'd find them later, and not much else, never big on doling out the fine details. Which left him and Stiles shuffling out of the woods, trying to avoid the notice of the deputies still at the site.

"It'll be okay," Stiles had been saying that off and on. Scott wasn't entirely sure which base he was covering. There were so many things just falling to pieces, that optimistic prediction needed to go a long way.

Six minutes down the road and Scott's pocket rang. He shut his eyes when he saw his mom's caller id. Stiles looked at him and mouthed, 'I told you so', before he put it to his ear and answered.

"Mom? You okay? Where were you?"

Which particular blurted concern made her pause on the other end and ask warily, when she did respond. "I'm fine. I was in the back yard. What's wrong?"

He took a breath and he told her. She didn't say a lot, but he could hear the uptake in her breathing, in her heartbeat over the line.

"Honey, why would it come after me?"

"I don't know that it will," he admitted. "But if it comes looking for me, anyone who gets in its way is in danger. I don't want you in the house alone, especially at night."

"Honey, I live with a couple of werewolves, I think I'll be okay."

He shook his head, clenching his fingers around the phone. "A couple of wolves aren't a match for this thing. Please take this seriously."

"I am, honey. I promise, you, I am. I've got evening shift this week anyway. I'm assuming me being in a hospital full of people will ease your nerves a little?"

"Yeah. Let me drive you, though. Or Isaac. I don't want you out alone."

"Okay. That poor boy. His poor parents. You did check to make sure Zlata got home all right, didn't you?"

"Zlata." He'd forgotten all about her. He glanced at Stiles, who lifted a silent brow.

"Um, we're gonna do that right now. We're almost home."

"So, she's okay," Stiles said when he severed the connection. "I told you you were freaking out over nothing."

"It's not nothing. It's really far from nothing. She's not the only one I'm worried about."

Stiles met his eyes. "Yeah, I know. And don't think there's not a freak out not waiting to happen with me - - but one of us needs to have his head on straight. If you're having trouble keeping it together, it sorta means I have to, right? And you're making me feel like I'm way out of my element, just so you know."

Scott leaned his head against the window and laughed. Stiles had that unwavering ability to get him on the right tract when he was in danger of swerving off it.

"So," Stiles said, when they turned onto Scott's street and pulled up in front of Mr. Klutsky's house. "If you need help facing down the hot girl you ditched, I got your back, buddy."

"I got it," Scott said dryly. He could see his house two doors down. The car in the driveway. Safe and secure. Just seeing it made him breath easier. Stiles got out anyway, and leaned against the side of the jeep, when Scott walked up to Zlata's front door.

He took a breath and rang the doorbell. After a minute, Zlata opened the door, a faint curious line between her brows.

"Hi." He gave her a nervous smile. "You're okay."

She lifted a brow and agreed. "I'm okay. Yes."

"That's good. Because there were some things that happened and - - well, it doesn't matter, because here you are and you're okay."

He cringed a little at that little collection of words, but since he'd started, he figured he might as well keep going.

"Listen, I'm really sorry, about last night. I didn't mean for that to happen. I'm just thinking we both drank a little too much and things sort of got out of hand. Me and vodka apparently don't mix - - and I shouldn't have left you there, but I was pretty wasted."

He got that out in a nervous rush. The way she was staring at him was making him sweat a little. Sort of a cross between pissed off and amused. He ran a hand across the back of his neck, where the hairs were standing a little on end and added weakly.

"So - - Just wanted to say, sorry and make sure you'd gotten home okay."

"You come in and we talk about it."

"Come in?" He blinked at her, caught more off his guard than he'd already been feeling by that invitation.

"You convince me to accept this 'sorry'. Maybe ask nice and I forgive." She dipped her head, smiling, as clear an invitation as he'd ever had and she wasn't even drunk. He couldn't wrap his mind around it. Maybe it was him. Maybe he was just so scarred from all the various trauma that had been heaped upon him lately that the idea of making any new human connection was this foreign, frightening thing. And when she leaned closer, her scent invading his nostrils, it did send shivers of something that might have been akin to fear racing up his spine. And he didn't understand it. Getting hit on by a girl should not have been the sort of experience that made his testacies sort of want to crawl up into his body. It should have had the exact opposite effect.

He stepped back, swallowing, forcing an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry, Zlata. I can't."

"What, you like boys more than girls? You leave with one last night and that one - -" she jerked her head towards Stiles. "That one you are always with."

"No. No, I love girls." He felt vaguely appalled at the accusation, regardless that all her facts were spot on. "And you're gorgeous - -really, really gorgeous - - it's just I'm not - - um - - right now's a really bad time - - it's been a bad week. A bad month and I'm really not in a place where I even want to think about dating - - but if I do - it's definitely gonna be with a girl."

She lifted a brow, eyeing him with a sort of cold speculation that made him just want to back up and run. Which was around the time Stiles came up behind him, apparently having remained at the curb as long as he was capable, clapped an arm across his shoulders and said without the slightest shred of tact. "What he's trying to say is, he's just not that into you. But there's a whole school full of guys who'd give up a testicle for a look from you - - so no biggie."

Her eyes narrowed and Scott opened his mouth, aghast enough that he went with it when Stiles turned him around and pushed him into motion back towards the jeep.

"Oh my God," he found the breath to whisper. "Why did you say that?"

"Dude, its true. And you weren't getting anywhere with the polite wuss route. And we've got shit to deal with."


	9. Chapter 9

9

Red tinged her vision. The red of fury and of blood and of killing madness. She possessed the self-control to wait, standing with her claws biting into the wood of the closed door, while the wolf retreated. Waited until the sound of the engine started and the vehicle pulled away from the front of the house, heading those few doors down to the wolf's home, before she screamed.

Spurned. Humiliated by a wolf too young to know his own potential and his sharp-tongued, infuriating prey. She screamed again, an incoherent roar and swept her claws across door and jamb and wall, leaving deep gouges in her wake. Her vision narrowed, beast focused, as she tore through this cluttered room in her frustration. Her bones lengthened, thickening, bending at odd angles to accommodate the specter of the beast. Beast thoughts filled her head. Single minded and narrow compared to the thoughts of a human woman. Glass and wood and the stuffing of furniture padding littered the floor, but the destruction of inanimate objects brought no satisfaction. Blood and pain and fear were the things she craved.

There was prey here, cowering in that fear she so savored, locked in a room in his very own home. A decrepit old man, that she'd thought might be of use in this game she'd played. But she was tired of the game. Tired of dancing around her prey when he was too naïve to engage, predator to predator. She had no more use for pawns.

So she went into the back bedroom and bared her teeth in an elongated grin at the old man, before she painted the walls with his blood. His screams were pitiful, choked things and he put up no contest at all. No satisfaction from the kill. No challenge. She could get that, if she went to the wolf's house now. He'd put up a fight to protect the things he loved and she'd make him watch while she eviscerated them.

She closed her eyes, savoring that image. Licked one long, black-nailed claw free of blood, before frowning. But then that would be the end of it and she'd have to kill him out of hand, because he'd fight her to the death in his grief. Even though the haze of the beast mind, she remembered his mindless rage when he'd thought she'd killed his prey in the barn.

The beast might relish a fast, bloody kill, but the human - - the human _female _spurned - - had more complicated desires. She didn't want him dead, she wanted him baring his throat to her and begging for lives he valued more than his own. She wanted to ride him while she made him bleed. To lick the blood off his skin and inhale the scent of his fear and his arousal. The memory of the taste of his mouth and the feel of his body under hers was a heady thing.

She'd slaughter his pack, for a wolf without a pack was easier to control. She'd bring him trophies of the kills. All but the one who'd escaped her time and again, that the wolf valued above the others. That one she would save for last, for so many reasons. Not least among them, leverage.

But first she needed a new haven. This place, with its already cooling corpse, was no longer safe for her. But she had another. It always paid to have another hole in which to retreat and the little house far off the highway that had belonged to the man from the diner, would serve her purposes well.

So she gathered her things, the shiny new clothes and the plastic cards that allowed her the getting of them, locked the doors behind her, shutting in the already decaying corpse of the old man, and she went to prepare, before she began to hunt in earnest.

# # #

Stiles overslept. He woke to the sound of the clock radio spewing some mindless pop rock train wreck and his dad yelling at him from the bedroom door.

"Damnit, Stiles, I thought you were up a half hour ago. Get your butt into gear or you're going to be late."

His dad had the look of a man who'd overslept himself. He'd worked a double shift last night, dealing with the whole man-killing 'bear' still roaming the woods of Beacon Hills thing and come in late enough that the light of first dawn had been peeping over the horizon when he pulled into the drive. Stiles knew, since he'd stayed up waiting for him. There'd been no help for it, no chance at relaxing until his dad was home safe and sound. The few times Stiles had talked to him on the phone he'd been either out helping coordinating and containing the various resources at his disposal or dealing with the aftermath of the eighteen year old victim. State park rangers, county game control, and the various overeager civilians that considered themselves 'hunters' that came out in droves to volunteer their services, when the victim in question was one of their own local boys. If any of them had had any idea of what was really lurking out there, they'd all have run for the hills.

The people in the know, the people who had a chance of actually making a dent with this thing, were being more circumspect in their hunting. Neither the Argent's nor Derek seemed to think the vanago was randomly roaming the woods. It was smart enough, was the unilateral conclusion, that it was covering its tracks. But if it had a target, and that target was Scott, then the smart thing to do was to cover him.

Which had resulted in Derek lurking around Scott's neighborhood all night, and Argent doing who knew what, because he wasn't spilling and according to Scott, Allison had only let slip that her dad was on it. None of which had done much for the state of Scott's nerves and Stiles had heard it clear as day in his voice every time they'd talked on the phone last night - - which had been a lot - - neither one of them much for peaceful sleep.

He made it to school literally as the first bell was ringing. He noticed Scott's bike as he was sprinting for the school. It had two helmets instead of the one, which meant Isaac had been feeling guard doggish and had opted to ride to school with Scott this morning. Which any other day might slightly have annoyed Stiles, on that not so buried level where he kept his jealous insecurities - - but right now, two wolves instead of one made better odds if something large and terrible happened to make an appearance. He pelted down the hall and skidded into first period about thirty seconds after the second bell sounded. He stopped, putting on a nonchalant look as every head in the room turned his way, then sauntered towards his seat like it was no big deal.

Scott gave him an under the brows nod, from where he was slouched in his seat. He wasn't showing the purple circles under the eyes that Stiles was sporting - - yet another enviable werewolf perk - - but Stiles could see the exhaustion in his eyes. He had to wonder if Scott had slept at all. Probably not, as worried as he'd been.

Stiles leaned over as he was stowing his bag and shot Scott a questioning look.

Scott shrugged minutely. Which Stiles took to mean that everything was okay enough for him to be here, sitting miserably in school. The teacher, walking down the row, handing out what appeared to be a pop quiz, kept him from leaning over and talking.

As soon as class let out he pounced on Scott with the demand for details. Absolutely nothing had happened in the general vicinity of Scott's house last night. Derek hadn't picked up anything. Scott and Isaac hadn't. Which left a lot of people frustrated and tired and on serious edge. Waiting for the shit to hit the fan was almost as bad as the actual splat when it happened. Derek was keeping an eye on Scott's mom while Scott was in class, which was probably the only reason Scott had come to school at all, freaked out as he was over the notion of the thing having been lurking around his house.

Allison and Lydia converged on them while Scott was giving him the lowdown at Scott's locker. Isaac, leaning against a locker next to Scott's gave Allison a slight nod. She acknowledged it with a faint nod of her own, before saying in a hushed voice and a glance at Stiles. "So your dad got my dad in to see the corpse - -"

"Troy Fischer," Scott said softly, giving the c_orpse_ a name.

Allison flinched a little, maybe more comfortable without that added bit of humanization. And Stiles had to admit it was easier dealing with a flood of bodies when you didn't put names to them. Easier to distance yourself from the horror, which he was okay with. The horror was close enough as it was. Scott sometimes got stubbornly resistant to the easy route.

"Troy Fischer," Allison gave it to him, fingers tightening on the strap of the duffle bag sized purse she had on her shoulder. "He's not sure it's the same thing that ripped up the bodies in the barn."

All of them stood there, staring at her in bafflement.

Stiles demanded. "What the hell else could it be?"

Allison held up a hand. "He said the wounds weren't as deep. The claws weren't as long. He doesn't think the thing that did it was nearly as big."

"So some different murderous thing is following Scott around?" Isaac asked dubiously.

And Stiles had to agree - - the possibility of another supernatural beast roaming around trailing Scott, simply flabbergasting. Scott wasn't saying anything, standing there with his hand on his open locker door, just absorbing it.

"I'm not finished," Allison said giving both Isaac and Stiles a look to shut them up. "He said other than that, the type of wounds, the way the thing tore the body up - - that was the same. That other than the depth of the wounds and the size of the claws that made them - - the damage was almost identical."

They stood there, staring at her, all of them trying to wrap their heads around that. It was Lydia who finally said. "So maybe it is the same killer, with a different weapon."

"It's not using a weapon. Its claws and teeth," Isaac pointed out, flexing his own hand.

"Claws and teeth _are_ weapons." Stiles wrinkled his brows, because sometimes the wolves forgot just how dangerous they could be. "Still - - how?"

"Why is everyone assuming this thing - - this vanago - - can't change its form like you guys do?" Lydia asked.

"Because it never did. I mean, if it could have, it would have before now, right?" The initial burst of confidence Stiles started with, began to falter as uncertainty set it. He met Scott's eyes. "Dupont didn't say it was a werebear, right? He just said it was cursed to roam as a beast."

"That's what he said," Scott concurred, but the way his voice sounded, he was mirroring Stiles' uncertainty.

The bell rang and kids started to scatter towards classes around them.

"We'll talk about this at lunch," Allison promised, heading off. Scott gave Stiles one more worried look before heading off himself, Isaac trailing in his wake. Which left Stiles heading the same way as Lydia towards his next class.

"Why didn't you go to that party Saturday night?" Stiles asked. "Not that I'm not glad you didn't, everything considered."

"I don't know." She took a breath, then looked up and said softly, a vaguely guilty look in her eyes. "I had a bad feeling. I thought - - I thought it was just because Troy and his little clique have been sort of dickish since - - since - -"

"Since you stopped being one of the 'mean girls' and started hanging with us?" Stiles filled in the blanks.

Lydia sniffed, lifting her chin. "I was never one of the 'mean girls'."

Stiles wasn't entirely sure that was an accurate assessment, but then, he'd never much cared about her nice to bitch ratio, even before he'd been on her radar. "But now you think it was because you sensed something was going to happen there?"

"Maybe," she admitted, stopping out side her class and looking up at him miserably. "How am I supposed to differentiate between normal, everyday bad feelings and the ones that portent something terrible happening?"

"I don't know." There was no how to guide for Banshee's on the Internet. Nothing and no one - - even their various experts on the supernatural - - that had a clue how Lydia's radar worked.

"Yeah, well, I'm having a bad feeling about going to gym class today, but I think that's more because I hate gym class than there's going to a massacre during badminton."

She pouted and he grinned. He had to, because the instant image of Lydia in gym clothes and disgusted that she had to be, popped into his mind.

It didn't make for a lot of concentration when it came to sitting in class. Stiles had no earthly idea what any of his teachers had been going on about for the first three periods. He did draw a couple of what he thought were pretty good renditions of the vanago, in various snarly, coming at you with death in its eyes poses. The doodling got progressively bloodier and more morbid the longer the day wore on. When the lunch bell rang, it was like a mini break from the tension.

He had hit his locker and was headed towards the lunchroom when Scott's hot stalker sashayed up to him in the hall. He felt sort of bad for pushing Scott into going out with her in the first place. The girl was seriously single minded, and despite Stiles belief that Scott needed to get over Allison and get back out there, Scott had enough problems to deal with without adding a nut job to the list. So if somebody had to take the bullet and let her down hard - - she obviously wasn't taking subtle - - or not so subtle hints - - Stiles was willing to make the sacrifice.

"I talk to you," she said.

He gave her a wary look and stood there waiting. "Yeah? Okay. If it's about Scott, what I said yesterday holds true. He's just too damn nice for his own good sometimes and doesn't like to hurt people's feelings.

She lifted a brow, moving past him. "So you do it for him?"

"If I have to." He shrugged, drawn in her wake almost against his will. It was a pretty nice view from behind. She had on a pair of skin tight, low rise jeans today and a little vest that bared a good deal of skin between them.

"He hurt feelings fine on his own when he left party other night." She veered into the doorway of the girl's locker room, glancing over her shoulder at him.

"Yeah, well, he was drunk off his ass. He probably doesn't remember half that night anyway." He edged into the entrance. "Listen, I gotta go to lunch. Just back off - - he's got a lot of shit on his plate right now."

"I hear people speak of horrible thing that happened at party that night. This true?" She moved deeper into the locker room, the heels of her boots echoing on the tile floor. The lockers were empty, no gym classes during lunch.

Stiles sighed. It was like she only heard what she wanted to hear. Typical.

"Yeah. Somebody got killed. Read about it in the paper."

She turned to look at him, canting her head. "I heard it was a bear."

He snorted. "That's what they say - -"

"This is the girl's locker room," Ms. Redman, the girl's gym teacher stomped up from the interior of the locker room, a basket of equipment in her hands.

"Sorry," he was happy enough to use her accusation as an excuse to cut this awkward conversation short.

Zlata's eyes narrowed and she half turned as Ms Redman marched up. Stiles didn't even really see her move - - just Ms. Redman stop in her tracks, mouth opening in surprise - - the basket of badminton birdies falling from her hands, scattering at the floor at her sneakers. He looked back up, his own mouth open, at the spreading stain of red soaking down the front of Ms. Redman's white polo shirt. Blood spewed from the ragged, gaping slash at her throat. He could see the stained white of vertebrae through the chunks of missing flesh. She crumpled, knees hitting the tiles, before toppling backwards, her own blood pooling around her.

Stiles looked at Zlata. At her bland expression, at the hand at her side, at nails as long as his whole hand, fingertip to wrist, the tips of which were red with fresh blood. And he got it. Light a light bulb buzzing to life in his head, illuminating puzzle pieces he hadn't even been paying attention to, he got it. A Polish transfer student - - who Lydia insisted had a _Russian_ accent - - who happened to show up right when a Russian werebeast who used to be a Russian girl, was on the loose. A transfer student who had developed an instant, obsessive interest in Scott - - like she was hunting him. And if the hunting ended up with her trying to make out with him at some random party, well that was just a really bizarre twist to a bizarre situation. All of which made Stiles head swirl more than it was already swirling as the conglomeration of facts zipped through his mind at light speed, before fear and self-preservation took control.

He lunged towards the door and the hall, but she was there, faster than he could follow, clawed fingers biting into his shoulder and hurling him backwards, into the locker room. He hit a storage locker and rebounded, scrambling to keep his feet, ignoring the pain in shoulder and back and pelting into an aisle between lockers. Granted, he wasn't as familiar with the girl's locker as the boy's but there would be an entrance to the gym back there somewhere.

God, they'd been so damned blind. It had been right there and he hadn't been looking. Because she was pretty. Because he'd been amused as hell at Scott stumbling over himself trying to talk himself out of being interested in a girl who'd obviously been interested in him. Isaac hadn't liked her from the get go. Scott hadn't understood why she'd made him uncomfortable, but she had. Well, it seemed pretty clear now. Point to remember if he survived this: don't ever discount wolves when they got weird, goose-pimply bad feelings about things. Animal instinct apparently rocked.

"Where you going?" she called, her voice echoing in the empty locker room. "You don't want to play with me?" He couldn't tell where she was. He put his back to a locker, trying to hear.

He dug for his phone, frantically punching up Scott's number.

She came at him from over the facing lockers. Just leaped across them like she had springs in her legs and swiped the phone out of his hands. He yelped, blood welling where her claws had scored the back of one wrist and hand. She slammed a palm into the locker next to his head when he tried to dart that way and growled at him, baring teeth a hell of a lot longer than Scott's. The whole of her face was elongated, jaw lengthened, thickened, brows shifted into overhanging ridges, everything about her denser, thicker, vibrating with muscle.

Her eyes glowed amber and they were the same eyes he'd looked into before, in that damned slaughterhouse of a barn, in the cage in Dupont's basement at the lodge, chasing him and Scott through snow covered woods. The eyes of the vanago as it was contemplating ripping him into tiny shreds.

She put her claws on his throat and he shut his eyes, pressing back against the locker, heart pounding so fast it felt like it would burst out of his chest. He didn't want to die. He really didn't want to die and he was one twitch of her claws away from bleeding his life out on the floor, just like poor Ms. Redman.

"Please - - don't - -" he got it out in a breathless sob. "You don't have to do this."

She canted her head. One claw dug into the skin under his jaw, piercing flesh. He felt the warmth of blood trickling down his neck and shuddered. It would be humiliating if he peed himself before she even delivered the killing blow. But then, nobody would be able to tell the difference once he was dead, because nobody died neatly. Corpses were messy. Oh, God, corpses were really messy and he didn't want his dad to have to see that. Or Scott. Or Lydia. There was warmth on his cheeks that wasn't blood and crying was marginally less embarrassing than pissing his pants in terror.

"I do," she said and tightened her grip. But she didn't rip his throat out. She yanked him forward and slammed him back into the metal lockers hard enough to knock the breath out of him and make him see stars. Then a second time and his head hit and the stars disappeared, washed away by blackness.

The last thing he thought as he was sucked down, the explosive pain in his skull receding with consciousness was 'Oh, fuck, not again.'


	10. Chapter 10

10

The screams started during lunch. Scott didn't hear them until the commotion began to spread, like some virulent disease across the cafeteria, whispers at the outer edge turning to alarmed speculation and finally an outright rush of kids abandoning their seats to flood out into the hall, gawkers rushing the scene of the proverbial crime.

Lydia maybe even picked it up before he did, freezing in the line in front of him, hand outstretched towards the row of prepared salads, eyes round and wide and alarmed, when all of the rest of them were blithely unaware.

"Lydia?" he'd ventured, breaking her out of whatever it was that had snared her, and she'd blinked, looking up at him with dread filled green eyes. It was enough to make his chest constrict and his pulse began to pound in panic.

"What?" he whispered, even as the guy behind him in line started complaining about the hold up. _It's a salad not a PSAT - - just pick one._ Scott turned a dangerous look his way, the state of his nerves presently hindering his usual level of patience. Maybe there was even a glint of something a little more predatory than your normal high school sophomore exhibited in his eyes, because the guy swallowed and looked away. He turned back to Lydia, but she shook her head mutely, lifting a hand to her throat, fingers brushing across pale skin, an almost nervous gesture.

"Did you hear - -?" she whispered and he shook his head, not understanding. Which was around the time, a couple of kids burst through the cafeteria doors and whatever news it was they brought with them began its wildfire migration across the room.

Then, when he started paying attention, he heard the commotion outside. Heard the screams from half a building away, heard the thunder of sneakered feet on tile floors as the exodus began.

"God - -" Lydia whispered and Scott left her there, bolting out of line and heading towards the door along with half the kids in the cafeteria.

There was a crowd converging in the hallway outside the girl's locker room. There was Coach Finstock and vice-principal Hawkins trying to keep them away. Scott could smell the blood twenty feet away. There was a girl, crying against the wall next to the locker room entrance, the white soles of her sneakers stained with red. She was sobbing over and over - -_Blood - - oh my God, so much blood - -_

Someone came up close on his back and he didn't have to turn to know it was Isaac. Isaac bristling and tense and worried.

"Tell me it's not in the school?" Got hissed by his ear.

"I don't know." He needed to get in there. He needed to see and to scent while it was fresh.

"I need a distraction."

There was a pause, then. "I can do that."

Isaac slipped past him, shouldering his way through the crowd of kids. Zeroing in on a likely candidate, a big senior with a disposition for aggressive behavior and shoving him hard into a group of his cronies. The guy bristled, cursing as he regained his balance, staring with small, outraged eyes at Isaac, who stood there, smirking. He charged and all hell broke loose, kids scattering or knocked out of the way as the guy bowled into Isaac like an enraged bull.

As distractions went, it was a good one. Both Coach and Vice-principal Hawkins left their posts guarding the locker room doors and waded in to break up the fight. Scott didn't waste time. He slipped through the crowd and into the locker room, skirting the bloody footprints leading out. The blood itself started a few yards inside the room, pooling around the sprawled figure of Ms. Redman. Her eyes were wide and staring, the majority of her throat simply ripped away. There were pieces of flesh, of tendon and skin on the floor. It hadn't been a knife that had done it, but claws. How had it gotten into the school?

Gingerly, he stepped around the blood, trying to differentiate from all the hundreds of varied scents lingering in any given locker room. Sweat and deodorant, perfumes and shampoo's, female pheromones, menstrual blood - - the lingering sense of - - fear - - hanging in the air on some different level than the mundane smells. And something more familiar than all the other smells. A scent he knew as well as his own.

Stiles. He drew a shallow breath, not understanding. Thinking almost that his senses were playing tricks on him. But the scent was there, clear as day, where it had no business being. And once he was onto a scent, a strong scent, he could almost see it. Like he was following a drifting mist of colors outside the visual spectrum.

He stepped past Ms. Redman, following the trail deeper into the room, past a couple of rows of lockers, afraid of what he'd find. But it wasn't a body, just a phone on the floor. A few droplets of blood peppered the tile, more of it smeared the face of the cell. Stiles' phone. He knew it with a numb certainty. He picked it up, turning it over in his fingers, before another smear of blood caught his attention and he saw the dent in the lockers. Saw the bloody handprint on the metal, saw the puncture marks at the tips, where claws had bitten into the locker face, and he picked up the second familiar scent.

Zlata. Her unique scent, mingled with the blood, fresher than all the rest. As fresh as Stiles and Ms. Redman, all of them floating in the air like little colored dust mites. The colors of fear, the color of prey on the run. The colors of aggression - - the sense of a predator on the hunt.

He took a breath, staring at the phone in his hand, at the dent in the locker and a frightening suspicion began to form. There had always been something about her scent. Odd and subtle, when she wasn't throwing off utterly distracting sex pheromones. He'd never really thought about it, his mind thoroughly on more pressing problems. Zlata who freaked him out more than just a girl should have. Zlata who moved like a predator and looked at him like a predator sizing up prey, and he hadn't seen it.

He shut his eyes for a second in dread. Anger. Self-recrimination. A fear that ate at his insides like a cancer.

_Idiot_. How could he have been so blind? How could he not have known? He'd been close to her - -in both forms - - and he hadn't seen it. He should have known, and now Stiles was paying for it. And he couldn't get the image of the mangled corpses she left in her wake out of his mind. Couldn't stop the dread of what he was going to find at the end of this scent trail.

He had to shut his eyes for a second to force back the welling panic. He could feel the walls closing in, the black creeping in around the edges of his vision, the breath short and pained in his chest. And he couldn't afford it. He could not let it rule him. There wasn't a secret or a mantra to push it down - - like Derek said - - you just did it, because if you didn't you were screwed. The people that needed you were screwed.

He took a breath, clenching his fists and fought it down.

He shoved the phone in his pocket and started moving, following the mingled scents of Stiles and Zlata towards the door at the back of the locker room and into the empty gymnasium.

There was no gruesome discovery to be made there. Just a vast, dully gleaming floor, devoid of life or death. The sound of his footfalls as he padded across it echoed in the empty room. The twin doors leading to the back of the gymnasium were open.

Outside were the loading docks and the overflow parking. He could hear the sound of sirens. The police arriving at the scene. Stiles' _dad_ arriving. Oh God. He felt the constriction in his chest again. He drew a deep breath, seeking the semblance of calm he needed to be of use to Stiles. He couldn't follow a scent if he couldn't breath.

There were few cars out here. Employee or school vehicles mostly. He got to the second row and the scent stopped. Just ceased to be. All he could smell was tire rubber and engine oil and gasoline. A car. They'd gotten into a car and driven away. And if there was a trick to tracking cars down roads where thousands of cars traversed daily, he hadn't discovered it.

Why hadn't she killed him already? She'd shown no restraint before, leaving bodies littered in her wake. But she'd been in beast form before - - she was a girl now - - and maybe the beast mind and the girl mind were worlds apart. But not so far apart that she hadn't ripped up a boy two nights ago.

That she hadn't torn the throat out of a teacher today. And she'd sat at the kitchen table, drinking iced tea with his mom. Sat at the lunch table with his friends - - his pack, marking prey. And she had Stiles.

He stood there, flexing his fists, barely hearing the sound of movement behind him, until he caught Isaac's scent.

"Its Zlata," he said softly.

There was a beat of silence, then. "I told you she was trouble."

"She's got Stiles."

A long pause and then. "Yeah - - what are we gonna do about that?"

Scott turned to look at him, at Isaac standing there, a rip in the shoulder of his shirt, blood on his knuckles that wasn't his, waiting for him to tell him what the plan was. Because he was supposed to know. Because Isaac trusted him to know, when in reality, Scott didn't know anything. When he'd been stupidly ignorant of the things right in front of his eyes.

"Her house. We go to her house." It was the best he could do. The only place he could think to start when he didn't know anything else about her except what Dupont had told him. Except that he'd been in Dupont's '_care_' for a day and it had messed with his head and Dupont had had the beast - - he'd had _her_ - - for a whole hell of a lot longer.

# # #

Derek was waiting for them when they got to Mr. Klutsky's house. Scott had called him on the way home, desperate to know if the school was the first place she'd struck or if she'd been hunting before that. But his mom was fine. Everything was fine at home. Except for the predator that had been living two doors down. That was anything but okay.

Derek didn't ask if he was sure, when he met them at the curb, he just looked grimly at the house and said. "How long?"

Scott stood there, Isaac beside him, staring at the house and did a little mental math. "A couple of days after the barn."

"She moves fast."

Too fast.

"How does a girl that's been a bear for a hundred years pick up so much, so fast?" Isaac asked what Scott was thinking.

"She's a smart girl," Derek shrugged and headed for the house. He didn't bother knocking, just kicked the door in without breaking a lot of stride. Scott moved in past him, stretching every sense he had. The first thing he picked up was the stench of death. Of rotting meat and decay. He exchanged a look with Derek, who jerked his chin towards the back of the house. They moved through the front room, which looked like a mini tornado had swept through. A tornado with claws, if the marks on the walls and the rips in the fabric of the furniture were any indication.

They found Mr. Klutsky in a bedroom. All over the bedroom. Isaac gagged and staggered back. It wasn't just the smell - - although once they opened the door it was nauseating to the point of making him lightheaded - - it was the violence that had been done to a defenseless old man. Rage painted the walls of this room. Nothing sane had done this.

Scott fought back the bile that wanted to rise up the back of his throat and spun out of the room on Isaac's heels. There was nothing else living here and he needed desperately to get a lungful of fresh air to wash away of the reek of death. Isaac was outside, leaning over his knees, breathing hard. Scott joined him at the bottom of the porch, drawing in great lungfuls of air. Derek followed him a moment later, looking a little paler than Derek usually looked. The problem with wolf smell was that everything was more intense, including the awful stuff. He could still smell it, drifting out through the open door.

"What did you find?" Allison and Lydia were heading towards the house from the curb, from where Allison's car was haphazardly parked. Lydia lagging behind, looking as if she didn't want to know.

"She was here. She's not anymore," Derek said shortly.

"She killed the old man that lived here," Isaac added. "It's pretty horrible in there."

"She didn't come back here, after the school." Scott was sure of that. It had been a long shot anyway. The only starting point he'd had.

"But she was here?" Allison moved past them, up the steps, wrinkling her nose, even dull human smell able to discern the stench of a decomposing body. She took a breath through her mouth and turned to look at him. "She tracked you down and took over a house next to yours. What the hell does she want?"

"She's a hunter," Derek said. "She's hunting him."

"Yeah, it didn't look like a lot of hunting was going on at that party Saturday night," Isaac said.

Allison lifted a brow, glancing from Isaac to Scott.

"She's a girl now, not a beast," Lydia finally contributed, standing a few feet down the sidewalk, as if she really didn't want to get closer to the house with its reeking death. "Girls stalk different things than beasts. She's gone a hundred years without sex. Maybe she's just horny?"

"God," Scott hissed out a breath, so very much not wanting to hear that.

"So why'd she take Stiles, if she was after Scott?" Isaac asked.

"Because we're not easy prey," Derek said, meeting Scott's eyes. "Stiles was. She's messing with you."

He took a breath and looked at Lydia, who had insights the rest of them couldn't fathom. He desperately needed to know if she was sensing something now.

"Are you getting anything? Anything at all? She hasn't shown a lot of restraint before this - - do you think he's - - okay?"

She stood there, all of them looking at her, a wrinkle of dismay between her brows.

"I couldn't sense you - - when you were missing," she said finally, softly. "I can't sense him."

"But, you did sense something," Allison moved back down to her, clasping one of Lydia's hands in both of hers. "You led us to that barn. Something drew you there."

"But it wasn't Scott I heard," Lydia whispered. "It was all the people that died around him."

"So nothing?" Derek said impatiently.

Lydia shook her head.

"All that means," Allison said. "Is that maybe, nobody is dying. That's a good thing, right?"

Good seemed a relative term right about now. But Allison was trying hard to be optimistic, and Lydia looked so devastated, that he nodded.

Which was around the time, the phone in his jacket pocket, began vibrating.

# # #

It was easy. So very easy to cut through these weak human prey and take what she wanted. So very easy to fool them into complacence before she showed them her claws. The boy in the trunk of her car was proof enough of that.

She drove to the little house at the edge of the woods, and when she opened the trunk he was awake. Blinking up at her with wide, frightened eyes, holding out his hands defensively as she reached for him, babbling incoherently - - "Wait - - wait, oh, crap - - its you - - its you - - what do you want - -?"

She slapped his hands aside, doing in the great favor of not using claws and pulled him up, dragging him over the edge of the trunk. He staggered, one leg going out from under him and she hauled him up, growling.

"Oh my God - - you killed Ms. Redman - - you killed Troy Fischer - - where is this?"

He sounded disoriented, stunned. He tried to twist out of her grip, unruly and noisy, so she tightened her hand on his elbow to the point that his words trailed off into a yelp and his legs came close to buckling again.

"Stop. Stop. Stop." He clawed at her hand with his other, blunt nailed one, trying her patience, stupid, stupid prey that he was. She flung him at the low concrete steps and he hit, hip and shoulder and lay there, curling in upon himself for a moment, clutching his elbow, face screwed up in pain.

She stalked towards him, catching him by the scruff of the neck and dragging him up in passing, claws out this time, biting into the soft skin of his throat to keep him in line as she pushed him towards the door and through it. There was a patch of dried blood matted in his hair at the back of his head. Barely enough blood to count. She'd draw more, but she wanted the wolf here to see it.

She forced him into the bedroom, with its big bed and its sturdy iron frame where she'd fucked the man from the diner. What was left of his body was feeding the little things out in the woods behind the house. She pushed him towards the bed that she'd pulled out from against the wall and he barely hit, before he rebounded scrambling away, looking for an escape that wasn't there. Wide brown eyes, pale skin that barely contained the desperate rush of his pulse.

She let her teeth grow, filling her mouth like sharp, pointy blades of ivory and he blanched, putting his back to the wall next to the window she'd already boarded up. She stalked towards him and he edged away, wide-eyed, breathing harsh.

"As romantic as this little getaway is - - its not me you're aiming for - - its Scott. Right? Am I right?"

"Shut up." she said, grabbing his shirt when he'd run out of wall, claws ripping cloth and scoring flesh beneath. He flinched, but wisely, didn't fight her when she pulled him back where she wanted him.

"So what is it? You want to hunt him, or be his girlfriend? 'Cause you're sending mixed signals and he's not always so good at picking up the direct stuff."

She pushed him belly down on the mattress and bound his hands behind him, his heart beat this frantic beat beneath his ribs. Scared. Very, very scared. Good.

"If you're trying to get on is good side, hurting me probably isn't your best plan of action." He said it desperately, when she flipped him over. She stared down at him, brows drawn annoyance. He thought he understood her, stupid, stupid boy. She didn't need to ingratiate herself to a young wolf. His good will meant nothing to her, and he had destroyed his chance to garner a speck of hers. All she wanted now was submission, before she tore him to pieces.

"Your talking irritates me," she hissed at him.

"Yeah, yeah, I get that sometimes," He cringed in upon himself, squeezing his eyes shut when she lunged at him, claws on his jaw, stopping just short of piercing skin.

She swung a leg over his hips and crouched over him, letting the ends of her hair tickle his face as she whispered. "I rip out your tongue, maybe. No talking then."

He shuddered, having nothing to say to that. He reeked of fear. He was prey. And it took everything she had not to tear him apart. She wanted to. She wanted to rip open his soft belly and drench her hands in his blood while it was still warm with life. To feed on his flesh, because the flesh of humans was sweet. And she would. After he'd served his purpose.

She stroked the side of his face with claws only half out, then leaned in to lick the trail of wetness at the side of his eye. A poor substitute for blood. But a satisfying sign of his fear. She moved her lips to his ear and whispered.

"We call him, you and me." She pulled out the phone she had taken from the Man's bitch sister and held it in front of his face.

"Scott?" he whispered. "You want to call Scott?"

"Tell me his number."

He laughed. It was either courage or a break with sanity, but he laughed at her. "Seriously? He never gave you his number? And you want it from me?"

A muscle in her jaw twitched. She pulled back her lip in a snarl and gave him an alternate suggestion. "I could rip open belly, pull out intestines and wrap them around neck while you still live. Like a pretty necklace."

He stared up at her, looking horrified. "Okay, then. Let's call Scott."

# # #

Scott almost didn't answer the phone. The caller had a blocked Id and he wasn't in the mood for telemarketers. Something made him look twice at the unfamiliar number and take the call.

"Hello?"

"Hello, wolf." Her voice was a purr on the other end of the line.

"Zlata," he growled, the hair on the back of his neck bristling. Every eye in Mr. Klutsky's front yard immediately focused on him. "Where's Stiles?"

She laughed, and the sound of it, low and amused, made him clench his fists.

"What? You lose him?"

"If you've hurt him, I'll kill you." He'd never meant anything more in his life.

"Come try," she suggested. "We see who comes out on top, no?"

"Where is he?"

"Listen," she suggested.

He did, focusing past the fear and the anger that made his own heart thud a frantic tune, to the sounds in the background over the phone. Her heartbeat was slow and steady, but there was another, pattering faster than his own.

"Let me talk to him."

"Ask nicely," she purred.

He shut his eyes and rephrased the question. "Please, let me talk to him."

There was a moment's pause, then, "Hey, Scott. So today - - today's turned out to be pretty sucky so far." Stiles voice was shaky, scared shitless and him trying hard to hide it, but Scott knew.

"Its gonna be okay. I promise. Are you all right?"

"I guess that depends on your definition of all right. I'm not wearing my intestines like a necklace - - she threatened to let me try that, by the way, real class act, Zlata - - So I guess, I could be worse. You know she's the vanago, right?"

"Yeah, I got that."

"Just making sure we're all on the same - - " Stiles voice broke off with an abrupt gasp, and Zlata's was back on the line.

"Maybe I dig out one of his pretty eyes and send it to you. Maybe I send you other pieces of him - - gifts from me to you, huh, wolf?"

"No, no, that sounds like a terrible idea." He heard Stiles in the background.

"I send you his tongue first. He talks too much," she seemed decided.

"Don't hurt him." Scott ground out. "Please, don't hurt him."

"You do what you're told, like a good dog and maybe I won't." She sounded amused.

"Whatever you want - - I'll do."

"You will," she agreed. "You keep your wolves out of it and your prey with their arrows and their guns."

"Yes," he agreed. Little enough choice otherwise.

Isaac was shaking his head, mouthing 'no'. Scott ignored him. Both he and Derek could hear every word. Allison and Lydia were standing there, staring, worried looks on their faces, only able to hear the one side of the exchange.

Anything she wanted, he'd agree to, if it got him to where she had Stiles. He'd figure out the rest once he was in a position to put himself between her and him.


	11. Chapter 11

11

Route-34 was one long stretch of wooded, backcountry road that ran the length of three counties. The old road from Beacon Hills to the closest metropolitan mecca, that people had used to take a generation or three ago, before the interstates had been built. There wasn't much to speak of along it now. A lot of weathered old ramshackle buildings, gas stations and diners and motels that had seen a thriving business fifty years ago, but were lucky to keep afloat now that all the traffic had been rerouted down more modern thoroughfares.

She'd told Scott to head north on it and just ride, until he heard otherwise. She'd given him thirty minutes, which didn't give him a lot of time to get outside of town and onto a road heading towards some unspecified destination. She'd promised, if she saw anyone but him, anyone even resembling one of his on his tail - - that she'd take her time ripping Stiles apart. He'd believed her.

"This is bullshit," had been Isaac's opinion of the plan. "She's gonna kill you both, you know that, right?" Isaac was so upset at the prospect that his eyes kept flashing yellow in his agitation.

"You don't have a lot of faith in me, do you? Scott had asked, heading for the curb and his bike, concentrating on that one goal of finding Stiles. It was easier to keep his hands from shaking when he tunneled his vision and narrowed his focus.

"Allison shot like a dozen arrows into her and she was still kicking all three of our asses," Isaac reminded him.

"She was a beast then. She's a girl now." Scott tossed the spare helmet at Isaac with a warning look. "Don't follow me. Give me a little time to deal with this."

"How? How are you going to deal with this?"

"At least let's stop by my place and get one of my dad's trackers, so we can find you without her knowing," Allison laid a hand on his wrist as he swung onto the bike. "Please, Scott. You can't deal with this alone. We know what she's capable of."

"I don't have time," he tossed her a look and got snared for a second at the fear in her eyes. Fear for him. They thought he was walking towards his own death and they were probably right. His luck so far in surviving the vanago - - Zlata - - had been pretty miraculous so far. It couldn't hold. He still had to do it.

"He can't go into this alone. It's insane," Isaac was muttering.

"Maybe not." Derek moved up, grim faced. "If she turns into the vanago, she'll tear you apart, no contest. But if she only turns partially, you may stand a chance."

"What's to stop her from turning?" Isaac wanted to know.

Derek flicked a glance his way, before turning back to Scott. "Fear. The fear that she won't be able to turn back again. It takes the rare individual to go full animal and not lose themselves in the beast mind. For a century the human part of her was dormant. It took something pretty traumatic to bring it back to the forefront enough for her to initiate the change. Maybe you and Stiles blasting out her brains - - who knows. Doesn't matter. What matters is, the fear of going full beast and not being able to shift back might keep her from _being able_ to shift back." He tapped his temple. "Its not just physical, its mental. So if it comes down to you and her - - you go hard and fast and you don't give her the chance to weigh her options. You rip her throat out before she rips out yours. No moral dilemma. No chance for redemption. No mercy. You hear me?"

"I hear you," he said softly, before shoving the helmet on and starting up the bike. "Don't follow me." He wasn't sure they wouldn't - - the way Isaac looked, the grim set of Derek's mouth hinted that they probably would - - but he had to hope they'd be cautious enough about it not to get Stiles killed.

Which put him on a desperate trek down rural route-34, trees and the occasional roadside collection of buildings flashing by. He kept thinking, what if he was too late. What if she'd grown impatient and decided to carry out her threats. What if this was all part of her game and she'd already done it, and he was just wasting time out here, amusing her. What if? What if? His head swirled with terrible supposition.

He'd ridden fifteen miles out of town, and was almost to the county line, when the phone in his pocket vibrated. He skidded to a dusty stop on the side of the road, pulled off his helmet and answered it.

"Turn around," she purred into the line. "There's a tavern on the side of the road with a pig on the sign. You understand?"

"Yes." He'd seen the place in passing, smelled the scent of smoking meat. Maybe a mile back down the road.

"You keep phone on, so I hear," she said. "No calling your wolves."

"No calling," he agreed. He pulled back out onto the road, the phone in his hand. It took him a handful of minutes to cover the distance. It was an old building with a tin roof and a bordered up gas station next to it. The sign above it had a jovial, dancing pig and the claim of Joe's Pig Shack in faded, peeling paint. A few cars and a pickup truck were in the dirt lot next to it.

"Park around back," she directed. "Come inside."

He did, parking the bike behind the building, out of easy sight of the road and walked around to the front entrance. The bell on the door jingled when he opened it. The inside was as old as the outside. Wooden booths and a long, faded Formica counter. It smelled of beer and meat and tobacco. No one bothered to enforce no smoking laws in this particular establishment. There were a couple of good old boys in faded caps sitting at the counter getting an early start on their beer consumption, a greasy looking guy behind it, all of whom cast him looks, as if he were infringing their territory by setting foot inside.

Zlata was sitting in one of the booths by the big, dirty glass window that allowed her clear view of the road. She had a plate of food in front of her. He walked over, hand clenching the phone and stood waiting.

"Sit." She waved a hand to the seat across from her.

"Where is he?" He stood there, everything he had bristling.

She picked up a piece of bar-b-qued pork with her fingers and sucked it into her mouth. "Sit. Now. Maybe I tell you."

He took a calming breath, another, and slid into the booth across from her. "What do you want?"

She smiled, licking sauce from her fingers, one by one. "This is good meat. Tender. You want some?"

"Where is Stiles?" he ground out, clenching his fists on the tabletop. The phone creaked in his hand. She reached out and took it from him. She cut it off and sat it next to hers.

"You sure you want nothing?" She asked him.

"I want you to tell me where Stiles is. I want you to leave us alone and leave here. I don't care where."

She canted her head, staring at him for a moment in silence, before she reached out, snatched his wrist and drove the knife next to her plate through the back of his hand and into the table top.

He managed not to scream. She'd driven the blade in up the hilt, pinning his hand to the table, and the shock and the pain made him see red around the edges. He reached for the hilt, instinctively, and she waved a finger at him.

"Leave it, wolf. Or maybe I get up and walk away and the next time we talk, I find another of your pack to make you listen to me. This one will be dead."

He drew a shuddery breath and slowly let his free hand fall to the tabletop. Blood was slowly oozing out from under his palm, just a trickle on the top of his hand, the blade restricting the flow. He shut his eyes and nodded.

"Good," she said. "You learn."

He half heard the guy from behind the counter move up to the table, past the rush of blood in his ears. The guy opened his mouth, like he was about to ask Scott if he wanted anything, but the words stalled, his eyes fixed on the knife hilt protruding from the back of his hand.

Zlata smiled up at him, showing just a trace of fang. "It is a game," she purred. "He likes it. Bring me another of these." She tipped the bottle of beer with her fingertip on the lip.

The guy stared at her warily, back to Scott, then shrugged and headed off to get her beer.

"I like this beer. The beer at home - -it taste like pig swill. No good. Vodka at least kills the taste after you drink enough."

She picked another chunk of meat off her plate, sucked the sauce off it before sucking it into her mouth.

"You've tried this bar-b-que before?"

He swallowed, staring at her. He could feel the metal of the blade grind against the bones of his hand when he flexed. It hurt like a bitch, but he'd felt worse things by a long shot.

"The sauce is good." She reached out, running her fingers along the back of his trapped hand, through the trickle of dark blood. She brought the blood-covered finger to her mouth and sucked it in, eyes flickering a deeper amber as she did. "Almost good as blood, no? You tasted the blood of a kill, wolf? You eaten flesh of prey while it's still hot with life?"

"No," he ground out.

She sniffed. "What sort of wolf are you, that hasn't made a kill?"

"A human one."

She grinned at him, a predator's grin, then picked up another chunk of meat, sucking it into her mouth.

"At home, before - - there was never enough food. Everyone starved during revolution. We'd kill a man for a loaf of bread on road. Strip his corpse and sell his belongings - - but it never occurred to us that meat on his bones would stave off the hunger. Only after the shriveled old bitch laid curse, did we come to relish the taste of human flesh. Then we never went hungry."

He stared at her, sickened. Terrified by the utter disregard she held for human life. "You're were an animal. You're not an animal anymore."

She canted her head, lifting a dubious brow. "You think not?"

The guy brought the beer, sat it down with a wary look at the knife protruding from Scott's hand, before shuffling off. The two guys at the counter were staring at them unabashedly.

She took a long drink from it, plucked another piece of meat into her mouth, licking her fingers, before she pulled a twenty-dollar bill out of her jeans and tossed it on the table. She grabbed the knife and yanked it out.

Scott hissed softly, blood welling for that moment before his flesh began to industriously knit itself.

She slid out of the booth, jerking her head for him to follow. Outside, she headed towards one of the cars, a dark, expensive sedan. He stopped a few paces from it, flexing the wounded hand. The skin was already mended, but the itch of knitting flesh and tendon on the inside sent shivers up his arm. The fear of getting into that car with her sent shivers everywhere else. He had to concentrate to keep his breathing even and steady.

"Come," she urged. "We go see your friend."

Short of giving up on Stiles, he had no choice. None. He blew out a tremulous breath and reached for the passenger door. The moment he was inside he picked up disturbingly familiar scents. Jan Dupont was all over this car. Fainter, but still prominent was the smell of the girl from the side of the road.

"Dupont's sister didn't get away, did she?" he stared at Zlata as she started the engine.

"No," she agreed.

"You killed her and the girl?"

Her mouth curved in a satisfied smile. He clenched his fists and snapped his eyes away from her, staring at the road as she pulled out. Not that he could dredge up much regret for Jan Dupont, but the girl, even if she'd ruthlessly stun gunned him, and stood by while he'd been tortured hadn't been much older than him. She'd had dimples when she smiled. Two more lives snuffed out and Zlata smiled like it was an accomplishment to be proud of.

She drove south from the diner, heading away from Beacon Hills. Maybe four miles up the road, between patches of woods, she pulled into a long dirt drive, past an unkempt yard towards a small, one story house that had seen better days.

"He's here?"

She got out, bending down to look at him through her open door. "Come find out."

He got out, circling around the car cautiously. There was a neighboring house, a carbon copy of this one, but it was a good distance away. A long dead plot of soybean between it and here. There was just woods in the back and woods on the right hand side. Nobody close enough to hear a disturbance and report it. Not that the authorities showing up would result in anything but dead deputies, so he supposed it was a blessing.

"You killed the person who owned this house, too?" he asked.

She came up close beside him, her hand drifting up the back of his arm. "I give him something to smile about before I ripped off that part of him he was proudest of. He screamed then."

He shut his eyes, a visceral shudder at that image running through him.

"He's back there, in the wood. I show you, if you want. Live prey more interesting, though."

He shifted away from her, needing out from under the touch of her fingers. He caught Stiles' scent then, as the breeze shifted, and the faintest trace of blood. New blood. Old blood. He held his breath, focusing his hearing, and heard the sound of a heartbeat through the thin walls of the house. He was here and he was alive and for a split second Scott shut his eyes, a surge of relief flooding through him.

"He's not prey," he said through clenched teeth, knowing she was talking about Stiles. "People aren't prey."

She stood there, staring at him, the faintest glow of amber brightening her eyes. "Anything that runs is prey. Wolf should know this - - here." She pressed a closed fist against her chest. "Wolves that don't - - no better than prey themselves."

He let his own eyes flash, letting her know just how wrong she was.

Her grin elongated, showing him fangs, that though not nearly as long or as dangerous as she'd sported while in beast form, were still damned impressive.

"Maybe I go kill your prey now. Think you can stop me, wolf?"

He lowered his eyes, finding his center, that surging rush of primal power that fed the wolf inside. And he let it loose.

From one heartbeat to the next he shifted. He lunged at her, full on wolf, hoping to get in that one incapacitating blow that would take her down before she realized he was coming.

But of course she was ready for him. She swiped at him, her claws black and curved and longer than his, but he ducked under the blow, hitting her full body, sending them both crashing through the front door and skidding in a tangle of limbs and claws and fangs onto the floor inside. She caught him a glancing blow to the side of the head, and he saw stars. But he rolled, swiping at her as he did, and she was almost fast enough to avoid him, but not quite. His claws raked across the side of her face and she screamed, this vibrating roar that made the windows rattle. She caught his arm and flung him into the sofa. She almost dislocated his shoulder in the process. Strong. Just crazy strong.

He rebounded and came back at her. Ducked under the swipe of her claws, faster than she was, and scored a strike across her mid drift. Blood spewed in the wake of his hit, blood on his hands, blood blossoming across the bare, torn skin of her belly. He could just see the glistening coil of intestines before she put a hand to it, snarling, holding flesh together as it began to knit. It was horrific, that he'd done it, even when desperation and fear made everything red around the edges. It didn't slow her down, her arms were longer, thicker, her hands elongated into things that could house claws three times the length of his. She caught him a scored a hit that tore through muscle and tendon in his shoulder and sent him staggering against a spindly-legged table. He was off his balance long enough for her to catch hold of his arm and fling him across the room with the force to buckle the wall when he impacted. Plaster and splintered wood rained down with him as he sprawled. Blood running down his side from the gouges, head spinning from the impact with the wall.

She crossed the room after him in one bound and he barely managed to roll to avoid her full weight coming down upon him. He kicked out in desperation, catching her in the hip, slamming her backwards. He grabbed the overturned table and swung it, catching her full across the face, shattering wood and making her stagger. Her foot slipped in blood - - hers or his - - and she went down to one knee. Hard and fast and no mercy, had been Derek's advice, as if the primal instinct of self-preservation inside Scott had any need for that bit of ruthless wisdom. He was on her, bearing her backwards, claws at her throat, tearing through flesh.

"Stop, please," she cried staring up at him, wide eyed, blood on her lips - -and no matter what she was, at that moment she looked young and frightened and female, with her blood under his claws - - and he hesitated, staring down at her in horror, not able to carry through.

Impact hit his side, agony fast on its heels, debilitating pain that tore through him with blunt force. He looked down, saw the piece of splintered wood protruding from his side, just above his hip. She growled under him and drove it deeper. He tried to draw breath that wouldn't come, oxygen lodged in the knot of pain at this throat. She shoved him, claws raking his chest and he toppled backwards, clutching for the wood impaling him. She smacked his hand away, looming over him, blood drenching her neck, drenching the vest she wore, no fear on her face now, no wide-eyed supplication, just killing rage and cold purpose.

"Fool," she growled at him. She drew back her hand, claws extended and she wouldn't hesitate. He knew she wouldn't miss a beat, tearing out his throat. But instead of ripping out his jugular she grasped his hair, yanked his head up and slammed it back down, against the wood floor with a resounding crack of bone meeting hardwood. He saw stars, wetness spreading across the back of his head. She did it again and wood splintered, maybe the bone of his skull did. The third time and darkness rushed up with the impact and everything stopped.

# # #

Stiles couldn't move. He dared not move. He wanted to, but even breathing too deeply pressed the razor wire into the skin of his throat. He sat, back pressed against the tall wrought iron headboard, a noose of razor wire around his neck, the length of it trailing through the bars of the headboard, under the bed frame to where she'd fastened the other end to the footboard, as far out of his reach as the moon. His hands could have been loose for all the good it would have done him, tethered as he was with the sanctity of his neck on the line. There were already a few trickles of blood that he could feel, working their warm, slow way down this throat. She'd been damned meticulous in wrapping the wire around his neck.

She'd been gone for an hour, he figured, his internal clock a pretty accurate mechanism, when he heard the ruckus burst through the front door. And then all he could do was sit there, trying not to breath too deeply, while it sounded like some sort of were beast war was being waged in the other room.

Then it went quiet. Dead quiet and all he could hear was the sound of his own measured breaths. He wanted to believe, with every iota of optimism he had - - which unfortunately generally took a second seat to the more realistic streak of pessimism that generally took front row seatage - - that his friends that figured out a way to find him. That Scott had come bearing healthy reinforcements - - Derek, Isaac, even the damned twins would have been welcome, an Argent or two - - and that this eastern Euro were-bitch had just been handed her head on a platter. But of course, when did any plan they concocted ever work out smoothly or without hitches? Seldom at best.

He had almost worked up the nerve to call out and see if there were any survivors of the house shaking ruckus that had just occurred, when Zlata - - a damned bloody, battered looking Zlata appeared, one red stained hand clutching the ankle of the body she was dragging behind her. Scott's body, trailing a smear of fresh, dark blood across the floor in his wake.

Stiles stopped breathing, this fist of fear balling up between his heart and his throat. If she was bloody, Scott was just as much so, and Scott wasn't moving. He couldn't even see if Scott was breathing.

"You bitch - - you fucking bitch - - so help me God - -" he breathed, low and furious and he didn't care if he pissed her off, or how ridiculously underprepared he was to carry out the threat.

She cast him a glance, her eyes glowing supernaturally amber, the side of her face stained with blood, the gashes that had leaked it, closed up but still visible. There was a set of only half healed rakes on her stomach, still leaking a little blood at the edges. Healing, but not crazy fast. Not like when she'd been sporting a full-on fur coat.

There was a grimace of pain maybe, when she dragged Scott up and dumped him on the bed, feet at Stiles' end, head towards the footboard. There was a lot of blood in his hair. Blood staining his collar and the back of his neck. The shoulder of his jacket was black with it, the denim shredded from shoulder to breast. His shirt was wet with it. Stiles saw why when she grasped the end of a piece of wood and yanked it out. And kept yanking. It was long, maybe twenty inches of jagged, blood soaked wood that had had to go through organs on its way in. Scott didn't even flinch as she ripped it out of him. Just lay there, still like death and Stiles wanted to vomit.

"Oh - - God. Oh God - - you psychotic bitch - - what did you do - -?"

"Shut up," she lunged at him across Scott, growling, snapping teeth in his face. There was pain in her eyes. Damage done her that she was barely containing. There was no where to go without the razor wire ripping his throat to shreds, so he just shut his eyes, clenching his teeth, feeling the heat of her breath on his face, until she sucked in a hissing breath and the mattress shifted as she backed off.

He dared to open his eyes again, as she was pulling Scott's jacket off, going through the pockets, finding a phone that looked like Stiles', his keys, not much else. She tossed them aside, and started unwinding the stands of razor wire she'd attached to the footboard. For a moment, the tension on the wire around his neck let up, then she dragged Scott's arms up to the bars of the footboard and began wrapping the wire around his wrists.

"Seriously?" he choked as the wire pulled taut again. It was a bit of macabre genius on her part, tethering a werewolf who could have ripped his way out of a bit of flimsy razor wire without much effort, by the simple act of attaching the other end of the wire around the neck of somebody that didn't have the ability to miraculously heal up from things like a lacerated jugular. Which wouldn't necessarily stop Stiles' from getting his throat sliced open if Scott jerked up before he realized what was at stake.

She sat on the edge of the bed, after she'd finished twining the wire, one hand, claws still half extended on Scott's chest. She pushed the edge of his shirt up, baring his stomach. Stiles couldn't see if the wound on his side had closed up yet, but there was still a lot of fresh blood. The sort of dark blood that was almost black that wolves leaked when the wound was damned serious.

She ran her fingers across it, then brought them to her mouth, sucking the blood off one at a time.

"You are one seriously disturbed piece of work, you know that, right?"

"Stop talking or I kill you now instead of waiting for him to wake up and watch."

He choked back a hysterical laugh. At least she seemed convinced that Scott would be waking up. Please, please let her be right. And please let somebody like Derek or the Wonder Twins or Argent with an arsenal in tow, be close on Scott's heels. Please let them have figured out something a little less suicidal than letting Scott come into this solo.

She spread her fingers out on Scott's stomach, below his ribs, and his pulse fluttered under her hand. Good sign at least, even if he wanted very badly to snarl at her to get her claws off of him. She rose then, without a word, and left the room. A little less grace than she usually exhibited. Stiles hoped she hurt like a bitch. Hoped she'd maybe feel the need to go curl up somewhere and lick her wounds while she healed. Give the cavalry a little time to get here.

Because if there wasn't a cavalry on the way, they were fucked. Hard. In a very uncomfortable place.


End file.
